


trial by fire

by dragonbagel



Series: gimme shelter [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Azula (Avatar) Redemption, F/F, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Miscommunication, Multi, Post-Canon, Smoke and Shadow Comics (Avatar), The Promise Comics (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 99,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26503432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbagel/pseuds/dragonbagel
Summary: “You bite your nails,” Azula says coolly, nodding towards the healer’s fingers. “It’s a sign of neuroses, and a tendency for self-doubt.”The healer’s hand twitches.“Tell me,” she continues, leaning forward. “Are you afraid of me?”The lack of response is answer enough.“It’s alright,” Azula says, grinning. “You should be.”or: zuko & azula, international politics, secret societies, and the impending collapse of the world as they know it
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula & Sokka (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: gimme shelter [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867984
Comments: 731
Kudos: 497





	1. ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this starts right before ‘may your flame burn eternal’ and then carries on where it left off, so i recommend reading the other works before this (although you do you i guess lol)
> 
> cw for allusions to abuse and discussion of mental illness

Azula has spent her entire life in the Fire Nation. Sure, she passed a few months abroad in the Earth Kingdom overrunning Ba Sing Se—a feat which, it should be noted, not even her great-grandfather could ever dream of achieving—and chasing after her idiotic brother, but that was only mere seconds in the grand scheme of things.

And the grand scheme of things is this: the Fire Nation is her country. She was born and bred on the land that Agni himself blessed, with righteous power shining down upon her and those devout enough to follow in the sun god’s stead. Its citizens are her brethren, her _subjects,_ scattered across islands and archipelagos, showered in divinity and volcanic rocks.

But this place she is now forced to inhabit—this _prison_ —must surely be mistakenly plotted on the map, because never once has the Fire Nation ever felt so cold.

The so-called healers refer to the dwelling as a ranch, but even that designation is a bit of a stretch. Though there are no cells, the endless farmlands serve as a jail in their own rite; here, manacled and manhandled, Azula is no better than the very cattle being herded through the pasture.

The healers also say, in their infinite lack of wisdom, that it’s Azula’s own stubbornness that keeps her in chains rather than roaming free; that it’s her bullheaded desperation for escape and violence that necessitates the chi-blocking cuffs clamped around her wrists and ankles.

Her fellow inmates, they point out, don’t have to wear the shackles—or, as they insist on calling them, “bracelets”—because they aren’t a threat to those around them, though Azula would argue that they couldn’t be a threat even if they tried. No, the other girls are almost laughably docile, and if her captors think Azula can be moulded in a similar manner, they are sorely mistaken.

(Besides, it’s not like being free of the cuffs makes a huge difference when there’s a certified chi-blocker stationed in each room.)

Mother is also under the preposterous impression that she’s near the point of breaking. She constantly chatters in Azula’s ear, waxing poetic on the oh-so-fitting fate of her least favorite daughter. Her voice mingles with the whispers of the other girls, whose infuriating affinity for gossip tugs on each and every exposed insecurity as Mother fills in the gaps.

(Personally, Azula prefers the snide comments of her compatriots; at least when she snaps at them in response, she receives consequences rather than new diagnoses.)

The worst of all, though, is Ty Lao. The striking resemblance to her traitorous sister isn’t her fault, of course; but even without the long braid and frilly pink get-up, the similarities are overwhelming.

Frankly, Azula had all but forgotten of her existence before her arrival; the fate of Ty Lee’s numerous siblings, least of all those of such mental weakness, were one of the many topics of conversation which Azula tuned out.

She’s less awful than she could be, Azula supposes. She doesn’t rely on kitschy acrobatics for validation, nor does she seem particularly inclined towards back-stabbing and betrayal. She doesn’t even know, Azula later realizes, what became of Ty Lee; and once she denounces her sister’s treacherous actions with a truly impressive ferocity, Azula finds she doesn’t much mind the girl’s company.

It’s Ty Lao, in fact, who introduces her to the ostrich-horses. The creatures are hideous, a nightmarish amalgamation of feathers and talons; Azula is not above admitting that their beady eyes make her skin crawl.

Yet despite their less than appealing appearance, they also offer her the slightest chance at freedom: when she tends to the livestock—a task which, considering the erratic behavior of the animals, requires a full range of motion—she is awarded with a brief respite from the chi-blocking cuffs. The metal rings still dampen her bending where they wrap around her ankles, but her wrists are allowed to breathe free—not so much that she can summon flames, yet enough that she can feel the flicker of light in her gut with each inhale.

(Her favorite ostrich-horse, Pabu, is far more skittish than the rest. Ty Lao introduced him to Azula under the guise of a challenge, though even the spaciest of the other girls present knew it was revenge for Azula’s petty insult of her posture the day before.

But the joke is on Ty Lao: Azula _had_ managed to tame Pabu, and now she has a beaky, aggressive sidekick all of her own.)

If the healers wonder why she spends so much time grooming and cleaning the ostrich-horses, they have the decency not to ask.

Animal companionship notwithstandingu, however, the menial labor the healers assign to Azula is monotonous and, more importantly, wholly unbecoming of the rightful ruler of the Fire Nation.

Yes, she’ll admit that her traitorous brother technically won their Agni Kai (though the mere presence of that Water Tribe savage was an uncouth betrayal of the sacred rules); but considering the damning truth of his patronage spelled out by their mother’s hand, any claim of his to the throne is irrelevant.

It’s almost funny, the way that her lecherous mother’s attempts at cruelty—her whispered taunts, her harsh words—led her to the very discovery that damned her oh-so-precious son.

_She was to be crowned that day, to lead the world into a new era by the fire of Sozin’s comet; she was to fulfill the destiny set forth by her forefathers, to find glory at the Phoenix King’s side._

_Mother’s taunts had been particularly awful that morning, loathe as she was to the notion that her daughter would ascend to her divine place on the throne. She claimed to love her yet cursed her in the same breath, wailing and whining until Azula had no choice but to eradicate her very presence within the palace walls._

_She still knew the way to Mother’s quarters; her tiny feet had covered this same path through the winding halls many evenings when she was a girl, silken slippers padding across marble floors by the light of a small flame cupped in her palm. She’d instinctively sought out that maternal comfort each time she woke from nightmares, kicked aside her twisted sheets and snuck past the guards patrolling outside her chambers._

_She remembered, in snippets of dreams, the warmth of her mother’s embrace, and the calming cadence of her voice as she read_ Love Amongst the Dragons _until Azula drifted back to sleep on the pillows beside her._

 _(She remembered the day Father taught her that such was the behavior of cowards like her brother, and she wondered if those moments of motherly love—of_ weakness _—were real to begin with.)_

_(It would be better that way, because Azula had never needed anyone other than herself.)_

_Yet the canopied bed, dust-covered though it may be, tugged at the treacherous notion of familiarity in her ribcage. She knew, somehow, that the golden tassels adorning the bedposts were silky smooth, and the right side of the mattress, were she to sit on it, would dip slightly below the left._

_Was this why Mother had called her here? To dredge up these shameful memories that surely,_ surely _could not be hers?_

_She kicked at the side of the bed in rage, blue sparks igniting the blankets in a flurry of dust and smoke. The wooden frame groaned as it slid towards the far wall, mahogany screeching and scuffing beneath its weight. A few floorboards splintered, and if she wasn’t planning to reduce the room to ashes, she’d track down whatever shoddy craftsmen built it and force them to fix each and every one of their mistakes._

_The flames rose as they consumed the bedspread, a dark haze settling in the air. She knew she should leave, lest she foolishly ruined her skin just hours shy of her coronation. She should summon one of the various servants at her beck and call, and instruct them to douse the fire only after every last trace of her mother was incinerated._

_But Azula, for all her pomp and circumstance, had always been a curious creature. It served her well, considering the tyranny and betrayal lurking in the path of her success; and it served her now, as she noticed the glimmer of gold peeking out from beneath the ruined floorboards._

_It was surprisingly light, once she carefully pried it out of the wreckage. What could Mother possibly deem worthy of such deception?_

Probably jewelry, _she reasoned._ One more family heirloom that she’d rather bury than bestow on her daughter.

_The box’s contents were even more treacherous than she could have imagined: letters, envelopes upon envelopes, each addressed to a man called Ikem._

_Azula tore through them with a razor-sharp focus, scanning the regal penmanship laden with treasonous words to her peasant consort. She spent the majority of her words cursing Grandfather’s magnificent war efforts, and wasted the rest gushing over her son._ Zuko took his first steps, _one read;_ Zuko started his firebending training, _said another. Mentions of Azula—the real prodigal child—were slim, and she burned each and every letter that dared spell her name._

_The smoke grew thicker, rough and grating on Azula’s lungs. But only one letter remained, and once it joined the pile of ashes with its brethren, she could leave the cursed room to burn for eternity._

_The parchment was stiff under her fingers, wrinkled and creased as though opened and closed one too many times. The characters were slightly faded, but she could make out the date to be that of Zuko’s seventh birthday._

“My dearest Ikem,” _it said._ “It’s taken me a long time to admit it, but you were right. I belong with you, and nothing is worth this pain.

“My one consolation is our son Zuko. When I look into his eyes, it’s as if I’m looking into yours. My thoughts are with you always.”

 _Azula stared at the page, then read it again. And again. But her eyes were not deceiving her; on the letter, clear as day, were the words_ “our son.”

  
  


She’d tucked the letter away in her chambers, afterwards, to serve as proof if her idiot brother— _half-brother—_ ever dared to show his disfigured face in the Caldera again. It’s probably still there right now, shriveling in her room along with her stolen dignity.

Here, her inner flame is gone, blue fire traded for spears of ice, cracking under her goosebump-ridden skin, shattering like glass (like _lightning)_ and splintering outwards, taking and taking and—

“Azula.”

The hazel-eyed healer’s voice is even, emotionless as always. Azula hasn’t bothered to learn their names; she’ll be gone, soon, off to take her rightful seat on the throne and scorch this vile place off the face of the planet.

“Yes?” she says, keeping her tone similarly clipped.

“I asked where you went, just now.”

Azula scoffs. It’s been weeks, and they’re _still_ playing this ridiculous game? “I haven’t gone anywhere. How can I?”

She jangles the chains on her wrists for emphasis.

“I meant in your mind,” the healer replies. “You disappeared for a moment.”

Azula purses her lips, gaze sliding between the healer’s carefully neutral expression and the ragged remnants of her nails, somehow in a worse state than Azula’s, which she hasn’t been able to file in weeks.

“Tell me,” she says, shifting to sit up straighter in her frustratingly pliant chair. “Have you always had a crippling fear of failure?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The healer’s mask of nonchalance falters, and Azula takes to it like a tiger-shark to a pool of blood.

“You bite your nails,” she replies coolly, nodding towards the healer’s fingers. “It’s a sign of neuroses, and a tendency for self-doubt. Are you afraid?”

The healer’s hand twitches.

“Yes, clearly you are,” Azula says, inclining her head slightly to the side. “But of what?”

She leans forward, clasping her bound hands in her lap. “Is it your parents? Maybe a lover?”

She forces the healer to meet her eyes, scanning her wide pupils for any plethora of embarrassingly indiscrete tells. She spots it, then, hidden in the slight glimmer just outside the greenish edge of her irises.

“No,” she says, smirking as she reaches the answer to her previous question. “You’re scared of me.”

The healer’s lack of response is all the confirmation she needs.

“It’s alright,” she continues, her grin widening. “You should be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i’m basing azula’s experiences on an extrapolation of my own, but please keep in mind that no two people’s experiences of mental illness/treatment are the same


	2. sunflowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days, Mai doesn’t speak.
> 
> It isn’t that she can’t, as any expectations of silent obedience disappeared the day they left her father, but rather that she has nothing to say—at least, not to the present company.
> 
> or: mai, flowers, & feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ik i’m late but happy bi visibility day, have some Yearning!
> 
> cw for alcohol, implied homophobia, & implied sexual content

Some days, Mai doesn’t speak.

It isn’t that she can’t, as any expectations of silent obedience disappeared the day they left her father, but rather that she has nothing to say—at least, not to the present company.

Today is one of those days. Business is slow at her aunt’s flower shop, and as unpleasant as the work usually is, the current drudgery is tenfold. She nearly drops the clippers multiple times while pruning the shrubbery, her eyelids heavy with exhaustion and laden with the hopeless knowledge that the plants will likely die before any of the scant clientele so much as looks at them.

She gives up on the pretense of work when her aunt isn’t watching. Yes, she knows that her labor is the least she can do to repay the woman for giving what remains of her family a place to stay; but it’s hardly consolation for the mind-numbing boredom she now has to endure on the regular.

Still, she supposes it’s a nice break from babysitting Tom-Tom. He’s a formidable six years old now, meaning he’s not only reckless and pigheaded, but also smart enough to hold a real conversation; and if there’s one thing her brother loves to do, it’s talk.

Usually, Mai can get away with letting him babble until he tires himself out. Other, more taxing times, she’s bombarded with a barrage of questions. Some of them are simple: the lyrics to a song, the sound of a komodo-rhino, the names of the past Avatars. But others...well, others Mai simply cannot answer.

She cannot explain to him why she is no longer dating Zuko, or where their father went. She cannot put into words why they had to leave Omashu, or what Aunt Mura means when she talks about the war.

And, most of all, she cannot tell him about what happened to Ty Lee and Azula.

Though he was too young to remember much—including Mai’s brief stint in prison—he still recalls the existence of two friends who, ostensibly, are no longer present.

What is she supposed to say? _Azula had a psychotic break, and the girl at the heart of my affections is training to be a warrior hundreds of miles away?_ No, that simply wouldn’t do.

So when Tom-Tom starts to bring up topics better left unsaid, Mai carries him down from the apartment to the shop below. There, she can distract him with pretty colors and sweet-smelling petals. She names every flower he points to with his chubby fingers, and lets him lead her by the hand as he toddles through the store.

 _“This is jasmine,”_ she explains each time, _“and it’s often used to make tea. The purple ones are plum blossoms, which grow fruit in the summer. These plants are white dragon bushes, which are also good for tea._

 _“You have to be careful, though,”_ she adds as Tom-Tom stares are the flora, enraptured as always. _“They look just like the white jade bush, which is poisonous.”_

They end every trip, inevitably, with the fire lilies.

 _“These only bloom in for a few weeks every summer,”_ she says as she points to the ever-closed red blossoms. _“But when they do, they’re beautiful. We celebrate them at the festival, and people give them to profess their love.”_

Each time, Tom-Tom takes the information in with awe.

(Each time, Mai imagines placing a crown of them on Ty Lee’s head.)

The festival is still months away, though, and the summer heat has barely begun to settle over Caldera. For now, Mai ignores the fire lily buds planted in the corner and turns her attention to the pot of golden sunflowers before her. She bites her lip as she looks them over, attempting to determine which blossoms will be most conspicuous for her to remove.

She glances over her shoulder and, when she’s certain her aunt is thoroughly engrossed in arranging the bouquets displayed in the window, she deftly cuts off two flowers and stashes them under the top of her apron.

After her shift ends in a few hours, she’ll press and dry them, just as she did with the roses the week prior. Then, when the rest of her family is asleep, she’ll fold them inside a letter she writes by candlelight and send it with a hawk to Kyoshi Island in the morning.

Is it girlish, to include such ornamentation for the simple sake of Ty Lee’s inevitable compliment? Is she just phishing for affection? Or is it simply an attempt to soften the blow of her updates on Azula who, in the grand total of three times she’s visited her, has done nothing but spout conspiracy theories and accuse her of treason?

She knows that Ty Lee still cares deeply for their friend, even if she did imprison them; and at the end of the day, Mai is the same way. Azula may have sown endless violence and wronged them more times than she can count, but it doesn’t erase the fact that they’re a team of three. (Or four, maybe, before Zuko was banished, but that’s a fact of her childhood she’d much rather forget.)

Even when Azula threw her and Ty Lee in prison, she still held a place in Mai’s heart. And when the Avatar ended the war and released them, her knee-jerk reaction was to wonder if Azula was okay.

(Her other reflex was to pray that the few kisses she and Ty Lee shared would mean something outside the walls of their cell.)

_They arrived back to Caldera to find the city in disarray. Though the streets had been spared from violence, the same could not be said for the palace; the entire courtyard was in shambles, the pristine grounds of Mai’s memory covered in soot and ashes._

_Zuko, bedridden and weak, rasped out a bare-bones summary of how their world went up in flames. He recounted his Agni Kai with Azula that earned him the crown, and the Avatar’s victory over his father. It was around that point that he collapsed into a coughing fit, and the Water Tribe boy—whose presence beside Zuko Mai had all but forgotten about—had to coax him into shutting up and drinking some medicinal tea._

_He picked up where Zuko left off, including the conveniently omitted fact that Zuko nearly died by jumping in front of Azula’s lightning._

_“You idiot,” Mai hissed, smacking him in the shoulder. “What the hell were you thinking?”_

_Zuko stared at her in wide-eyed shock before slowly turning to the Water Tribe boy._

_“Sokka,” he whined. “Why’d you let her do that?”_

_Sokka, much to Mai’s amusement, just snorted. “You kind of deserved it.”_

_“Some boyfriend you are,” Zuko muttered, sinking down deeper into the pillows._

_Sokka froze, then, as did Mai and Ty Lee._

_“Uh,” he said, nervously scratching at the back of his neck. “Zuko’s on a lot of drugs right now—the tea, funny story, is actually Iroh’s secret blend, because Zuko’s too stubborn to—“_

_“Sokka,” Ty Lee said gently, cutting him off. “We know.”_

_“About the tea? Because I was told it was a special recipe that—“_

_“No, idiot,” Mai interrupted with a sigh. “About you two.”_

_“Oh,” Sokka replied, looking away. “Well, this is awkward.”_

_“I’m happy for you,” Ty Lee said. “Both of your auras look a lot brighter.”_

In the handful of times she’s visited Zuko since then, Sokka has nearly constantly been at his side. Yes, she’s glad the two of them finally stopped dancing around their feelings—but she would still greatly appreciate an opportunity to speak to Zuko _without_ him hanging around.

His omnipresence is only made more infuriating by the fact that Zuko resolutely refuses to discuss his sister in front of him. It’s not exactly hard to see why; even back when they were simply discussing the best place for Azula to receive treatment, Sokka was steadfast in his dismissal of the possibility of her recovery.

(If he had his way, Mai is nearly certain he would have locked her up right next to Ozai.)

Now, even in the occasional moments of privacy she and Zuko share, Mai is hesitant to bring up Azula. She knows it upsets him that he can’t visit her, and any news that doesn’t indicate progress tends to send him spiraling into an angry, emotional mess.

Still, she answers truthfully whenever Zuko asks, because he showed Azula a mercy that not many would grant. The conversations, at least, have become marginally better now that he’s dismissed the conspiracy theory about his father.

(His explanation, stilted and plot hole-ridden as usual, of finding his mother in a backwater town is confusing, but Mai has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.)

He’s exhausted, though, and anyone can see it. The makeup he applies does little to hide the bruise-like bag under his unscarred eye, and his cheekbones are becoming alarmingly pronounced. He assures her that he’s fine, and she reminds him that he’s a shitty liar. Clearly, her concern rankles him; and if he doesn’t invite her to tea as often because of it, that’s fine with her. (God forbid she be the bearer of the bad news that breaks the first decent Fire Lord in a century’s back.)

But without him to talk to, her only other outlet is Ty Lee—and Ty Lee, unfortunately, hasn’t returned to Caldera since Zuko’s coronation.

Perhaps Mai should have gone with her to Kyoshi Island. While she’d rather die than trade her knives for a fan and clownish face paint, she has to admit that spending time outside of the Fire Nation sounds like a nice change of pace. More than that, though, she misses Ty Lee so much it hurts.

She thinks about her while she glares at her aunt’s disgustingly flirtatious customers, and while she entertains Tom-Tom’s endless questions, and while she ignores her mother’s needling about “finding another nice boy like Zuko.”

(She thinks about her while she lays awake and alone at night, checking and rechecking that her door is locked before reaching her fingers down under the sheets.)

She thinks about her so often that, apparently, she’s started to hallucinate about her, too. Because how else could Ty Lee be standing in the doorway right now?

“Mai!”

She barely has time to blink before she’s enveloped in a pair of familiar arms, the squeal of excitement in her ear making her insides flutter.

“I’ve missed you so so _so_ much!” Ty Lee cries as she squeezes her.

Mai tentatively hugs her back, trying desperately to hide the anxiety churning in her gut. She just has to be cool. Aloof. She can do that. (Right?)

“I know it’s been a while,” Mai replies, “but I’m still not a big fan of hugging.”

Either her voice isn’t as disinterested as she hopes it is, or Ty Lee misses her too much to care. (Secretly, Mai hopes it’s the latter.)

“Come on!” Ty Lee says when she pulls back. “I’m only here for a few days, and we have so much to catch up on!”

She grabs Mai’s hand before she can fully process what’s going on, waving a speedy hello and goodbye to Aunt Mura as she drags her out the door.

“We’ll be out late!” she calls over her shoulder, her braid swinging back and forth as she does. “Girl talk!”

Mai doubts her aunt will be particularly thrilled that she’s skipping out on the job but Ty Lee’s hand is warm in hers and she can’t bring herself to care.

“Wait,” Mai says when they’re a few steps outside. “I’m still wearing my apron.”

Ty Lee giggles. “Yeah, I guess you are. Here, I’ll help!”

She skirts around Mai to her back, her fingers deftly untying the bow holding the fabric around her waist. Then, so gently that Mai thinks she may be imagining her soft touch, she eases Mai’s hair out of the way to pull the strap looping behind her neck up and over her head. Her breath ghosts over Mai’s skin, and she shivers.

“Ta da!” Ty Lee says proudly, holding up the apron like a trophy. “All done!”

Mai is sure she’s red as her aunt’s fire lilies by now.

“Oh!” Ty Lee exclaims after a moment. “What are these?”

Mai follows her gaze to the flashes of yellow petals fluttering to the ground.

“They’re sunflowers,” she says nervously. “I was, uh, going to send them to you.”

“I love them! Thank you so much!”

“Uh, you’re welcome?” Mai replies, floundering under Ty Lee’s look of sheer adoration as she cradles the flowers. “I’m gonna go put this back.”

She gingerly plucks the apron from where it rests over Ty Lee’s shoulder, speeding back into the shop and tossing it over the counter.

 _Breathe,_ she tells herself. _Stop acting like an idiot._

Agni must have other plans for her, because when she leaves the shop moments later, the sight she’s met with knocks all the air out of her lungs: Ty Lee has tucked the sunflowers into her hair, and it’s the most gorgeous thing Mai has ever seen.

“Come on,” Ty Lee says, holding out her hand. “I know the _best_ dumpling place!”

* * *

The dumplings are, objectively, fantastic. Unfortunately, Mai’s brain has little to no capacity to focus on anything other than Ty Lee.

“So,” Ty Lee asks, leaning forward excitedly. “What do you think?”

Mai’s throat feels too dry, and it takes a few tries to force her food down. “It’s good.”

Ty Lee claps. “Amazing! I’ve never been to this part of the city before, but when your dad said you moved here, I asked around for recommendations!”

Mai nearly chokes. “You spoke to my father?”

“Well, yeah. I was looking for you, silly!”

She must sense the discomfort in Mai’s aura or whatever, because she immediately launches into a harrowing tale of a fight on Kyoshi Island and spares Mai from reliving one of the worst nights of her life.

(If she closes her eyes, she can still see the fury in her mother’s eyes as she denounces his commitment to politics above his family. If she listens closely, she can hear Tom-Tom wailing in her ear as she carries him to Aunt Mura’s.)

“—and then Suki showed us this secret beach where Kyoshi and her lover used to meet!”

“Wow.” The dumpling once again sticks in Mai’s throat as she swallows. “So you and Suki…”

“What? Oh, of course not! She has a girlfriend in Ba Sing Se. She brings us all these exotic fruits when she visits!”

Mai hopes her relief isn’t too palpable. “That’s...nice.”

“You know,” Ty Lee says, beckoning Mai to lean in closer as she lowers her voice, “Kyoshi’s lover was a woman, too.”

“Oh.” The sound is breathless, close enough that Ty Lee can surely feel the puff of air on her cheek.

Ty Lee pulls back a moment later, leaving Mai fumbling for any shred of composure halfway across the table. She awkwardly clears her throat as she rights herself, and barely has the bodily control to nod when the waiter asks if she’s done with her food.

She doesn’t process the fact that Ty Lee pays for both of their meals until she’s been dragged halfway down the block, Ty Lee shouting something about a tea shop over the roaring of the evening breeze.

She lets herself be led through the winding streets, seemingly unfamiliar despite being the same ones she walks each day, until they stop at what is most definitely _not_ a tea shop.

Ty Lee giggles when she says as much. “Of course not, silly! Where’s the fun in that?”

Mai looks between Ty Lee and the darkened building. Colorful curtains cover all of the windows, and despite the closed door, she can hear the beginnings of upbeat music trickling out.

“It’s not even six o’clock,” Mai says, as though she wouldn’t follow Ty Lee to the ends of the earth any time of the day.

“Don’t worry,” Ty Lee replies. “Their drinks are _way_ better than tea.”

And if Ty Lee says so...and if Ty Lee happens to be grinning at her like she’s the entire universe...who is Mai to argue?

* * *

Ty Lee, it seems, is right again: the cocktails, bright and fruity and _nothing_ like the rice wine she used to steal from her parents, leave a pleasant thrumming in her veins. The music is swinging, and the low lights cast Ty Lee in a hazy glow. Her eyes seem impossibly wider as she stares up at Mai, grinning as she sips a drink in one hand and wraps the other around Mai’s waist.

“Come on,” she says, giving Mai’s hips a nudge with her own. “Dance with me.”

“I’m not very good,” Mai admits.

“Hmm,” Ty Lee says, pausing and pursing her lips. “Oh! I have an idea!”

She sucks down the rest of her drink, nodding for Mai to do the same. The ice sends a chill down her spine, but the alcohol soon has her feeling fuzzy and warm. Ty Lee gently slides the empty glass out of her hand, hurrying over to set them both down at the bar and then skipping back to Mai.

“Okay,” she says. “First, you’re gonna put your hands like this.”

Mai hardly dares to breathe as Ty Lee takes her wrists and guides them over her shoulders, squeezing them once before letting go. She settles her own hands at Mai’s hips, using them to push her into a sway _far_ too close to just be friendly.

“Ty Lee,” Mai hisses, eyes darting around nervously. “Someone will see.”

Ty Lee, as usual, is unbothered.

“Look around,” she says, her hips still swaying. “There’s a reason we came here.”

In her Ty Lee-centered tunnel vision, Mai realizes she missed one incredibly relevant fact: none of the couples in the venue are “normal.”

To her left, two men dance without any space between them. Behind her, two women lock their lips. At the bar, patrons whose genders Mai cannot even begin to identify laugh and flirt with one another.

She turns back to Ty Lee, who smiles.

“How did you know about this place?”

Ty Lee shrugs, grinning cheekily. “A girl has her ways.”

She rises onto her tiptoes then, cupping her hand around Mai’s ear. 

“It was Ty Liu,” she whispers, “but you didn’t hear it from me.”

Mai blushes at the tickle of her breath and shyly links her arms around Ty Lee’s neck when she pulls away. She feels hot all over, an intoxication less from the liquor and more from the hands on her waist. Ty Lee guides their bodies together, chests practically touching as they sway together.

Ty Lee must catch her staring not-so-subtly at her lips, because she quirks them into a smile and _fuck it_ , Mai can blame it on the drinks all she wants later, but right now there’s not a single bone in her body strong enough to keep her from pressing her mouth to Ty Lee’s.

She lets out a sound she prays can’t be heard over the music when Ty Lee kisses back, tugging Mai impossibly closer as she chases her lips. Her hands trail down the back of Mai’s dress, dragging lines of electricity in their wake.

Mai thought the fireworks she felt in her stomach the first time they kissed were overwhelming; but now, with Ty Lee’s tongue pushing into her mouth, she swears there’s an inferno inside her.

“What do you say,” Ty Lee asks the next time they break apart, “about coming back to my place? I have my own room at the inn.”

Mai grins. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I think I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mai, ty lee, and suki are all bicons full stop (& wow i miss gay bars lol)


	3. swordbending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko is approximately three seconds away from losing his shit.
> 
> or: did someone say harmony restoration movement?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for allusions to abuse & homophobia

Zuko is approximately three seconds away from losing his shit.

 _“But Zuko,”_ the nagging voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Sokka would say, _“Aren’t you always three seconds away from blowing up?”_

To this, Inner Zuko would reply, _“In my youth, maybe so. Now, I can usually keep my cool for at least a whole ten seconds_ _before exploding.”_

Huh. Inner Zuko sounds eerily similar to Uncle. He’d take the mental time to unpack that if it wasn’t for the fact that, _oh yeah,_ he’s about to lose his fucking mind.

“What do you mean they won’t withdraw?”

The advisor seated directly across from him, a squirrelly man whose needling voice should be classified as a form of torture, raises a hand.

“My Lord, we must remember that the Fire Nation has possessed these colonies for over a century.”

“Believe me, General Fung,” Zuko replies, practically shaking with the monumental effort to keep his cool, “I’m aware.”

“Yes, well,” the general starts, straightening his posture as though that will somehow make him more convincing, “then you’ll know that we’ve lost many good men protecting that land.”

“Not as many, I assure you,” Zuko says, his voice a deadly calm, “as the Earth Kingdom did when those ‘good men’ arrived.”

General Fung scoffs. “This is preposterous.”

“What’s _preposterous,”_ Zuko retorts, “is that the Harmony Restoration Movement was ratified months ago, and we’re _still_ in possession of stolen land!”

His anger is swelling, the lanterns lining the meeting chamber beginning to flicker dangerously. The familiar red haze is seeping into the corners of his vision, and every muscle in his body is tense with the mounting desire to _burn._

He startles at a sudden touch on his left forearm beneath the table, but calms when he realizes it’s just Sokka. (His boyfriend is, after all, the only person he truly trusts to sit in his blind spot.)

He feels Sokka’s fingers trail down to his wrist and settle on his pulse point. They squeeze gently for a moment before releasing, lingering just above his skin briefly and then pressing down again. His message is clear, and one that Zuko’s heard hundreds of times: _“breathe, idiot.”_

Zuko exhales, making a monumental effort not to let any sparks fly from his nostrils. Sokka’s right—he can’t let himself lose his composure, not when everyone in the Agni-forsaken room is just _waiting_ for him to fuck up badly enough to merit removal.

He takes another few deep breaths in time with the pressure until he finally feels capable of speaking without setting something on fire.

“General Fung,” he says, training his gaze on the man and _definitely not_ taking any satisfaction from the fear he finds there. “I understand our warriors may be reluctant to leave the colonies, and I honor your commitment to them.”

He feels Sokka tap his arm three times, their secret signal for approval, and he has to tamp down the wholly unprofessional smile that tugs at his lips.

“Because of this, I vow to aid in the removal effort however you deem fit.”

The general’s eyes narrow.

“With all due respect, _my Lord_ ,” he spits. “The only thing I find worth removing is _you.”_

A murmur ripples through the room, a wave of whispers drifting from advisors to servants, between guards and scribes. The sound rings horribly in Zuko’s ear, high pitched and grating enough to make his skin crawl.

“Enough!” he shouts over the din, standing and slamming his fists on the table before he even processes the fact that he’s out of his chair.

The hush that falls over the crowd is almost worse, as it makes Zuko all too aware of the frantic beating of his heart.

“You are all here,” he says sharply, gesturing around the table, “because you pledged to help usher in a new era of peace. If this is not your prerogative, I suggest you leave before I _make_ you.”

The general rises to his feet, glaring at Zuko.

“I pledged loyalty to my country,” he sneers, “not to a _coward.”_

Zuko stiffens, and the guards posted by the door take a step forward; at his nod, they march to stand on either side of Fung.

“General Fung,” Zuko says, “I hereby strip you of your title and banish you from this council. Guards, please escort him from the premises.”

Fung doesn’t even struggle as he’s led out, only looking back at Zuko as he passes the threshold of the doorway with a wicked leer.

“Glory to the Fire Nation!” he chants. “Fire Lord Ozai will reign again under Agni’s—“

The gilded doors swing shut with a thud of finality, shrouding the room in silence. For a moment, no one dares to speak; and when Zuko finally manages to clear the lump obscuring his throat, the sound echoes like a gavel.

“The council will adjourn for the day,” he announces, folding his arms behind his back in an attempt to maintain some semblance of composure. “I expect a more productive conversation when we reconvene.”

The remaining advisors rise from their seats and bow, their hands and postures an assortment of those traditional to each nation. The sight usually fills Zuko with pride; but now, as he makes the mark of the flame and dips his head in return, all he feels is a sinking sense of dread.

“Thank you,” he says as he straightens back up. “You are dismissed.”

The words taste oddly hollow, tinged with an emptiness that throbs like a missing tooth. He slowly runs his tongue along his gum line, half expecting to find a vacancy and wholeheartedly wishing for it, if only to have another cause to pin his misery on.

He hardly dares to breathe as the council members file out of the room, only Sokka turning back to offer him a smile that Zuko’s sure is meant to be reassuring but comes off more like a grimace.

As much as he’d prefer to be in his boyfriend’s comforting presence now rather than later, having him linger would raise too many suspicions. He knows Sokka hates the secrecy—Zuko does, too—but his seat on the throne is precarious enough as it is.

So Sokka, a man so full of confidence he’s practically bursting with it, swallows his pride and submits to Zuko’s paranoid plans.

He limits his time in public with Zuko, playing the role of a simple ambassador and war-time companion to a tee. He visits Zuko’s chambers in the evening not through the halls, but rather via the mostly abandoned sections of the servants’ hidden corridors; and even on those wonderful nights that Sokka spends curled around him in his bed, his fingers running through his hair and soothing him into peaceful sleep, he always makes sure to creep back to his own quarters by sunrise.

Today, at least, he knows Sokka has another meeting to attend, allowing Zuko the luxury of pretending that his absence is a more necessary evil. He doubts he’ll even catch a glimpse of him for another few hours—the Northern Water Tribe ambassadors have a tendency to bicker, both with Sokka and one another.

Sighing, Zuko straightens the stack of papers on the table in front of him. They’d flown into disarray during his outburst earlier, collateral damage of what he’s sure many attendees saw as yet another sign of his youthful immaturity. (Because even now, eighteen and stiff-necked from nearly a year of bearing the weight of the crown, the mention of his father still ignites something murderous within him.)

“Su,” he says, “please postpone the rest of my meetings for the day.”

His assistant, hovering just a few paces behind him as usual, nods. “As you wish, my Lord. What reason shall I give them?”

Zuko cracks a small smile at this. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Su doesn’t bother to hide her amused smirk as she dips into a quick bow, no doubt remembering the utter chaos that erupted when she rescheduled one day’s peace talks on the rumor that Zuko was displaying penta-pox symptoms. (In reality, Sokka had returned early from a month-long ambassadorial trip to the North Pole, and Zuko was determined to show him just how much he’d missed him.)

He thanks Su as he takes his leave, his legs on autopilot as they carry him to the training room. He’s sure Uncle would be disappointed that he isn’t meditating, but as he changes out of his formal clothes and into something more practical, he finds he doesn’t really care. (The old man should at least be proud, he thinks, that Zuko is refraining from any anger-fueled bending.)

The hilts of his dao are a familiar weight when he picks them up, the leather-wrapped handles comforting and _right_ in his fists. The blades ring as he pulls them apart, reverberating in the otherwise empty room from where he holds them out at his sides.

He moves through his forms with a fierce concentration, aligning his thoughts with the dull burn in his muscles and the smooth glide of his swords in the air. (If he loses his focus—if he lets his mind wander to cowardice and Ozai and politics—he thinks he might implode.)

“Mind if I join you?”

Zuko jolts as Sokka’s voice cuts through the cocoon of _(anything but his father)_ single-minded practice he’s unconsciously ensconced himself in.

“Sure,” he replies, hurriedly regaining his composure. “If you think you’re up for the challenge.”

“I just listened to Hahn’s stupid voice for two hours,” Sokka says as he unsheathes his broadsword. (And wait, _two hours?)_ “I think I’m more than ready to go.”

Zuko readjusts his grip on his dao. “You’re on.”

They’re on each other in a flash, blades clanging as they duck and parry with a practiced ease. Here, caught up in the delicate dance of give and take, it isn’t hard to imagine they’re back at Ember Island, sparring on the beach and, more often than not, ending up tangled together in the sand.

Even then, haunted constantly by the dual threats of Sozin’s comet and a certain twelve-year-old with eavesdropping feet, Zuko felt a strange sense of peace—a contentment that, since his return to Caldera, has more than made itself scarce.

“You know who sucks?” Sokka asks as he darts forward.

Zuko tilts his head thoughtfully, crossing his swords as he does so to block the attack. “Hahn?”

“Well, yeah,” Sokka admits. “But I meant that asshole Fung.”

This time, when Sokka whirls around to strike, Zuko retaliates with a bit more force.

“But when you told him off?” Sokka continues, louder now to be heard over the clanging of their weapons. _“Shit,_ that was hot.”

Zuko freezes, then, and Sokka takes the opportunity to swiftly disarm him. The force knocks Zuko on his ass, and Sokka is quick to pin him beneath his knees before he can scramble for his dao, which have been sent clattering in opposite directions.

“Do you yield?” Sokka asks, smirking as he holds the point of his blade above Zuko’s jugular.

Zuko swallows, unable to look away from Sokka’s downright predatory gaze. His wolf-tail has come partially undone, leaving some sweaty strands plastered to his forehead. He’s panting, breath hot and ragged, and Zuko’s certain he looks similarly debauched.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

His heart continues to frantically pound even after the sword at his throat is discarded, because Sokka is so close, so _solid,_ above him, hair framing his flushed face like a halo, and if Zuko leans up just a bit, his lips are close enough to—

“Get a room!”

Zuko pulls back so fast he gives himself whiplash, rolling out from under an equally flustered Sokka and shakily onto his feet.

“Mai!” he says, stumbling as he attempts to find his balance and wincing as his voice cracks.

He only makes it a few steps towards her before a blur of pink robes and freakishly flexible limbs slams into him with a squeal of his name, squeezing hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

“Ty Lee?” he wheezes. “What are you doing here?”

He’s left gasping for oxygen when she releases him, his rapidly pounding heart hammering in his chest.

“I came to visit!” Ty Lee chirps, skipping back to Mai’s side.

“Hello to you, too,” Sokka says sarcastically, sauntering up behind Zuko and hooking his chin over his right shoulder. “What am I, chopped seal jerky?”

Sokka’s breathing, which is distractingly close to Zuko’s ear, sounds winded, despite the fact that _he_ wasn’t the one that just got crushed by a Kyoshi Warrior. (Though when Sokka shifts and his hips brush against Zuko’s lower back, he becomes _acutely_ aware of why.)

“Oops,” Ty Lee giggles, raising her hand in an incredibly enthusiastic wave. “Hi, Sokka!”

“What are you guys doing here?” Zuko winces as the words come out harsher than intended. “Not that I’m not, uh, glad to see you both, it’s just...been a while?”

Ty Lee frowns, looking between him and Mai. “You haven’t been visiting?”

Mai averts her gaze. “I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, right!” Ty Lee says, brightening again as she somehow always does. “I forgot, things must have been crazy when you moved!”

The near-constant furrow in Zuko’s (singular) brow deepens. “You moved?”

Mai shrugs, though her attempt to feign indifference is pitifully transparent. “We’re staying with my aunt now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And add to this?” Mai scoffs, gesturing to Zuko’s general state of disheaval (which, let it be known, is only due to the fact that he’s been training for the better part of the afternoon). “No thanks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps.

“Hey, wait,” Ty Lee interrupts. “We shouldn’t fight.”

Zuko lets his glare linger for another moment before dropping it with a sigh. “You’re right. Why don’t we, uh, have some tea?”

“Great idea.” While Mai’s tone is flat as always, Zuko can tell by the slight sag in her shoulders that she appreciates the out, at least for now.

“How about you ladies go ahead,” Sokka suggests, pressing himself even closer to Zuko’s back, “and we’ll get cleaned up and meet you there?”

Any pretext of subtlety—already slim to begin with—vanishes as Zuko’s face flushes, and all he can think is _thank Agni that’s the direction his blood decided to rush._

Mai rolls her eyes, reaching out and tugging Zuko away from Sokka by his wrist. “How about _you_ go take a cold shower and find us when you’re done?”

Zuko stumbles as Mai drags him forward, Ty Lee at her side, and offers Sokka a sympathetic shrug as he’s pulled towards the exit.

“Wait!” Ty Lee says when they near the door, stopping herself on the tips of her toes.

She launches herself backwards without explanation into a series of cartwheels which, in a signature Ty Lee fashion, are both impressive and unnecessary. She lands quietly on her hands near Sokka, who’s in the process of resheathing their discarded weapons.

He yelps when he notices her—or, rather, notices one of her feet dangling terrifyingly close to his face—and wrenches a sword in front of his crotch so fast that it’s a miracle he doesn’t accidentally give himself a rather...unfortunate injury.

“What the fuck?!”

“Sorry,” Ty Lee giggles, righting herself with a flex of her elbows a few paces away. “Zuko just forgot something.”

She holds her arm up to reveal the golden ornament in her palm, curved and pronged and _definitely_ not meant to be laying on the ground.

“Is that…”

Zuko, unable to deal with the serious side-eye Mai is giving him, lets his head fall into his hands with a groan. “Don’t ask.”

He watches Ty Lee execute another set of flips through the gaps in his fingers until she’s practically on top of him.

“Here,” she says, straightening Zuko’s hair and situating the crown in it.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, trying valiantly not to think about how many ancestors he desecrated by carelessly changing for some suspiciously intimate sparring.

Mai rolls her eyes, looking between Zuko’s still semi-lopsided topknot and Sokka’s bow-legged hobbling towards the storage room. “You two were meant for each other.”

“She’s right!” Ty Lee adds, smiling and wrapping her arms around Mai’s shoulders.

“What about you guys, then?” Zuko shoots back with a smirk.

Mai groans and turns away with a muttered “shut up.”

Zuko just chuckles, because as much as Mai manages to get on every single one of his nerves, he really has missed her company. He says as much as he pours them each a cup of oolong, letting the familiar scent of the leaves wrap around him like a warm blanket.

“I’m sorry,” Mai says, staring down at the table. “I didn’t think the move was that big of a deal.”

“You’re my friend,” Zuko replies. “Of course it is.”

“Yeah.” The slight hunch of tension in Mai’s shoulders lowers. “I guess you’re right.”

At this, Ty Lee practically beams. “Now that we have that all sorted out, what’s the plan for tomorrow? How early do we have to leave?”

“Uh…” Zuko glances between his friends. “Leave for what?”

“To see Azula, silly!”

And damn if that doesn’t knock away all the air he’s only _just_ managed to suck back into his lungs. “What?”

“I know it’s kind of far from Caldera,” Ty Lee continues obliviously, “and I have to be here in time for my ship back to Kyoshi Island at sunset, so…”

“You’re going to see Azula?”

Her bright expression dims into one of confusion. “Well, yeah. It’s been almost a year!”

Zuko looks away and tries to mask his panic behind a sip of tea. It’s uncomfortably cold against his lips, and some of it spills over the side from how badly his hand is shaking.

“I guess it has, hasn’t it?” His voice, much like his body, doesn’t really feel like his own.

He hasn’t seen his sister in a year, an entire fucking _year._ When was the last time he even _asked_ about her wellbeing? He’s let this Agni-forsaken Harmony Restoration bullshit occupy every waking moment, leaving Azula to fall to the wayside.

(And still, he thinks bitterly, he’s still managed to make time for Sokka, and for life-changing field trips to Hira’a, and then for Sokka yet again.)

Ty Lee must sense his apprehension, because she reaches out to take his hand in hers. 

“You don’t have to come,” she says, eyes wide and earnest. “I’m sure it can’t be easy.”

Her face droops, then, overcome with a sadness that Zuko _really_ isn’t equipped to deal with. “But she’s my friend, and I think she could really use her brother right now.”

 _That isn’t what Mai said the last ten times I asked,_ he thinks bitterly. He almost calls her out on it, too, but he sees this conversation for what it is: his chance, finally, to mend the gap in his heart that’s ached ever since their Agni Kai.

“Okay,” he says. “I want to go.”

He pauses to glance at Mai for permission, because, as she’s reminded him on numerous occasions, Azula’s mental health is still more important than his own desires for reconciliation.

Mai sighs. “Fine. But if there’s even the slightest chance things are going sideways, you’re out of there.”

Zuko swallows. “Understood.”

“So it’s settled, then!” Ty Lee says, clapping her hands together happily. “We’ll leave at sunrise.”

“Where are we going at the ass-crack of dawn?”

 _Well,_ Zuko thinks, hiding his grimace behind his cup, _this isn’t going to end well._

“Hey,” Zuko says as Sokka slides into the chair beside him, trying his best to act casual. “You’re, uh...you’re back.”

Sokka arches his brow, brushing a stray strand of wet hair back into his wolf-tail. “Obviously.”

He grabs the teapot from the center of the table and, after pouring himself a cup, holds it out towards Zuko. “Fire magic, please.”

Zuko rolls his eyes but blows a wave of heat towards the porcelain, preening under Sokka’s satisfied sigh when steam begins to waft over the top.

“So,” he asks again, “where are we going?”

Ty Lee answers before Zuko can warn her of the multitude of reasons why she should very much _not_ do that. “To see Azula!”

Zuko winces as Sokka spits out his drink, spraying an incredibly displeased Mai.

“What?” His voice is hard when he finishes choking, and he sets his teacup down a bit too forcefully.

Ty Lee glances around nervously, no doubt sensing the serious change in the room’s energy. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Zuko,” Sokka grits out, “can I talk to you for a minute? _Alone?”_

 _Please,_ Zuko screams to Mai with his eyes. _For the love of god, help me._

Mai can’t do anything but shrug in what Zuko hopes is sympathy.

Zuko sighs as he lets Sokka tug him into the hallway, the tension in his boyfriend’s body setting off all kinds of alarm bells in Zuko’s head.

 _This is Sokka,_ he reminds himself. _He won’t hurt you._

Sokka wrenches open the door to a different sitting room, his glare sending the few servants relaxing inside scampering out.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Zuko mumbles, hanging back as Sokka begins to pace.

“I can’t believe it,” Sokka groans, wholly ignoring the righteous fear he just inspired in people who, objectively, were doing nothing wrong. “Ty Lee can’t make you do this!”

“Make me?” Zuko crosses his arms. “Ty Lee isn’t _making me_ do anything!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sokka says sarcastically. “I didn’t realize it was _your_ idea to get killed by that psychopath!”

“That _psychopath_ ,” Zuko spits back, “is my sister.”

“And?”

 _“And,”_ Zuko growls, clenching his fists in the sudden rush of fury flowing through him, “I haven’t seen her in a fucking year, Sokka!”

“Gee,” Sokka says, throwing his hands up mockingly, “I wonder why!”

Zuko exhales a tendril of smoke, rooting his feet firmly even as Sokka stomps into his already limited personal space, not stopping until their faces are mere inches apart. He forces himself not to shrink back or, worse, apologize. He clings to his resentment instead, stoking the flames in his gut because he’d rather act as a maniac than, as Fung so eloquently pointed out, a _coward._

He’s stubborn, but Sokka is, too. Maybe it stems from being the older sibling, the non-prodigal child—though Sokka would end him on the spot if he even _suspected_ Zuko of comparing Azula to Katara.

Whatever. _Whatever!_ Zuko’s the Fire Lord, and he doesn’t need to ask for anyone’s permission (especially not _Sokka’s_ ). “You can’t stop me.”

Sokka’s eyes narrow, and he looks like he wants to say something else ( _or threaten or yell or attack_ ); but instead, he just sighs.

“Do what you want,” he says, backing away with a look of utter dejection. “But don’t bother waiting up for me tonight.”

He doesn’t so much as glance back over his shoulder as he leaves Zuko’s chest with yet another empty space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i’ve got Plans for this fic, and i’ve officially decided it’s gonna be a loosely based combo of the promise and smoke & shadows (but like,, when i say loosely based, i mean fr Loosely Based)


	4. reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula knows full well who’s here; and shame on her, really, for not expecting from the start that her brother, as always, would throw a wrench in her plans.
> 
> “Aww,” she chirps, “Zuzu came to see little old me?”
> 
> or: a reunion, a realization, and a fight—not necessarily in that order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a heavy one folks, buckle up
> 
> cw for discussion of abuse, vomiting, brief allusion to self harm, minor violence

_It’s a game._

The epiphany strikes Azula one evening after a sad supper and an even sadder attempt by the healers to force her to wash the dishes. It’s likely a punishment—she had, after all, just sent another healer scampering out on trembling legs after their session—and an incredibly debasing one at that. Why, if Azula didn’t know better, she’d think that the staff here are _actually_ conniving; as it is, she chalks it up to sheer coincidence that her assigned chore involves the same element as the Water Tribe girl’s treachery.

Yes, she _may_ have let that unfortunate fact slip off her tongue in a last-ditch attempt to dissuade a healer from barraging her with further twisted questions; and alright, it _may_ have actually shut Mother up for more than a few seconds. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s figured it out: it’s a game, and _she’s going to win._

The rules, once Azula learns to look for them, are easy enough to find. Much like she worked her way into Father’s favor and twisted the Dai Li under her thumb, she’s well-versed in the art of manipulation—not just in spotting it, but in wrestling it under her will.

There is, first and foremost, the issue of mobility. It’s a simple enough trade-off: her freedom in exchange for a perceived submission. If she simply plays the part the healers expect, they unwittingly reward her (and leave themselves unguarded towards any attacks in the future).

So long as Azula is (momentarily) peaceful and agrees to drinking the foul-smelling herbal tea thrust under her nose each morning, her wrists can remain free of their manacles. She isn’t dull enough to be ignorant of the fact that the concoction is medicinal, and chi-blocking to boot, but it’s merely a temporary concession.

(And if the tea also happens to grant her a brief reprieve from Mother’s nagging presence, that’s simply an added bonus.)

The next rule is to befriend the other girls, whose company (sans Ty Lao) requires an exhausting amount of effort to tolerate. She must play civil, though, if she wants to reap the benefits of their “friendship;” it is only through their ineffable tendency to gossip, after all, that she receives information on the outside world that the healers do their damnedest to keep out of her reach.

It takes a mere apology and a few pointed compliments to open the proverbial floodgates, so Azula learns rather quickly that Zuko has risen as Fire Lord and declared an end to the war alongside the Avatar and his stupid little friends.

The most recent of his foolish escapades is a withdrawal from the Fire Nation colonies in accordance with the moronic Earth King who, lest anyone forgets, took every word out of Azula’s disguised mouth as gospel.

“Apparently,” one of the girls—because no, she will _not_ stoop low enough to memorize any of their names—whispers in the courtyard, “the colonials are refusing to leave.”

“I heard from my aunt,” adds another, “that Zuko ordered their execution.”

(Clearly, some of the girls are a bit over-dramatic, considering her brother is far too soft to employ such violence himself. But to condone it and let someone else do his dirty work? Now _that_ is much more on brand.)

She wishes she didn’t have to rely on these jumbled accounts of political proceedings from so-and-so’s fifth cousin once removed, but the only confidant from her former—no, _rightful_ —life to see her hasn’t shown her face in months.

Had she cursed Mai out for her treachery the last several times she visited? Perhaps, but that was beside the point.

(She won’t lie and say she doesn’t hope Mai returns soon; now that she knows the rules of this game, she’ll offer nothing but flattery.)

Mai’s presence would also grant Azula the privilege of access to the visitation lounge, a sequestered room where she is able to sit in the vicinity of anyone who deems her worthy of their pity. It’s the only area missing from her mental blueprint of the ranch, and the infuriating uncertainty is proving to be a major impediment in any of her jailbreak plans.

Because that’s all this is, really: a means to an end. A means to an _escape._ She won’t fool herself into thinking any differently, _least of all_ into thinking anyone who left her imprisoned here actually cares for her wellbeing.

That doesn’t stop her heart, weakened by herbal poisons and manipulated by soft-spoken healers, from threatening to beat right out of her chest when she’s told she has a visitor.

 _Control yourself,_ she orders the dastardly beast inside her ribcage, _it’s just a game_. It’s the same mental command she gives herself whenever she mistakes Ty Lao for her sister, or wakes up in the throes of a nightmare, or nearly spills far too much of herself in a session (though the concerned glances she receives hint that maybe her dialogue isn’t quite so internal).

She follows her escort through the winding hallways— _two left turns, then a right,_ she notes—until the healer stops her outside a windowless wooden door.

“Are you ready, Azula?”

The lack of title rankles her nearly as much as the healer’s patronizing tone, and if it didn’t come at the cost of crucial information for her freedom, she would already be mid-tirade about how his male-pattern baldness stemmed from a combination of poor hygiene and daddy issues.

But alas, there is an endgame in sight, so play by the rules she shall.

She gives a simple nod to her escort, angling her head slightly downward to enhance the image of submission that everyone here—especially the men—eats right out of her hand. It also makes it much easier to measure the width of the room this way.

She counts three paces before she reaches her assigned seat, a singular cushioned chair. It’s situated so that, by her calculations, the leather couch designated for visitors is perfectly parallel and centered to it. The rest is just simple arithmetic—if she imagines the outline of her feet, red-slippered toe to red-slippered heel, it would take ten of them to stretch between her and a pair of familiar pink leather shoes.

“Well,” she says, letting her carefully neutral expression slide into one of amusement as she looks up at her visitors. “Isn’t this a surprise.”

“Azula!” Ty Lee squeals, leaping up from the sofa as though to hug her before Mai tugs her back down with a pointed look.

Typical Ty Lee, never thinking before she acts ( _or,_ something sinister whispers, _before she betrays)._

“Sorry,” Ty Lee whispers, blushing for a moment before flipping her ponytail over her shoulder and lightening her expression again. “It’s just so good to see you!”

“I can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”

Ty Lee frowns at her, but quickly shakes the expression off her face in favor of another infuriating smile. “You look good.”

“What, this?” Azula replies sarcastically, tugging at the hem of her horrendous red sweater. “My, my, Ty Lee; don’t you know institutionalized is last year's style?”

“I meant your aura.”

Azula wants to snap that she quite literally couldn’t care less about Ty Lee’s spiritual bullshit—the utter inversion of the natural order that led to her current predicament long dispelled any lingering notion of a higher power—but she forces herself to remain civil and remember, above all, that _it’s a game._

It’s a game when she feigns interest in Ty Lee’s misadventures on Kyoshi Island, and it’s a game when she laughs as Mai laments the woes of customer service.

It’s a game, _it’s just a game,_ and she’s winning until she isn’t, because suddenly, Mai changes the rules.

It’s the overplayed lackluster in her tone, the minutiae of tiny twitches and tells that only the closest of friends—or, in Azula’s case, the keenest of eyes—could parse out.

“There’s someone else here to see you,” Mai says carefully, “if you’d like.”

She says _“someone else,”_ as though there’s a multitude of individuals just lining up to visit her in the nuthouse; as though the nationals who _don’t_ want her dead would be allowed within a hundred miles of this place.

No, she knows full well who’s here; and shame on her, really, for not expecting from the start that her brother, as always, would throw a wrench in her plans.

 _Or,_ she thinks as she quirks her lips up into a smirk, _her brother, as always, would foolishly play a pawn in her master plan._

“Aww,” she chirps, “Zuzu came to see little old me?”

She watches Mai and Ty Lee exchange a glance, some bizarre secret correspondence that she clearly isn’t meant to be privy to.

“Care to share with the class?” she asks dryly.

Ty Lee swallows. “It’s just,” she says hesitantly, “he wanted to talk to you alone.”

Azula raises a brow. “So?”

“So you don’t have to if you don’t want to!” Ty Lee is almost frantic in her assurances, an odd contrast to Mai, who simply appears calculating.

“I think I can handle a little sibling chat,” Azula scoffs.

Mai and Ty Lee look at one another again, and the strange tension emanating from them makes Azula incredibly uncomfortable by proximity.

“Okay,” Mai eventually sighs, standing and pulling Ty Lee up to stand next to her. “We’ll be right outside.”

Azula offers them a small wave as they leave with the promise of a speedy return, and catches part of a hushed conversation before the door closes and shrouds the room in silence. They took the resident chi-blocker with them, too; it’s a clear break from protocol, and Azula is torn between the equally intriguing prospects that either Zuko comes bearing secrets or with a woeful underestimation of her abilities.

She’s still debating when the door creaks open again with a soft (and achingly familiar), “Hey.”

Her brother’s voice is raspier than she remembers, somehow both grating and welcoming. His steps are nearly silent as he walks towards the now vacant couch across from her, eerily reminiscent of the way he’d learned to stalk through the palace walls after Mother disappeared.

He looks...different, in a way. Regal, yet still with an underpinning of adolescent awkwardness. His clothes resemble those of a commoner, but the golden trimming says otherwise. They’re a dark burgundy, stark against skin that she doesn’t recall being quite so pale.

His hair, while pulled up in a traditional topknot, lacks the stiffness she’s always associated with the Fire Lord. It’s softer, somehow, and provides a strange comfort in spite of the fact that Zuko’s golden eyes are entirely Ozai’s.

But Zuko is not Father, and Azula is not quite sure which representation of this fact is more damning: his clearly purposeful lack of a crown or the scar warping half of his face. 

(Even without the headpiece attesting to his bloodline, the carnage on his skin will forever mark him as Father’s.)

_“It should have been you.”_

Azula whirls around at the sound of Mother’s voice, scanning the room for her familiar figure. “Where are you?”

“Azula?” Zuko asks hesitantly.

_Hot breath on her neck, phantom flames from the hands of a non-bender. It’s sick, it’s impossible, Mother is reaching over her shoulder and towards her face and—_

“Did she send you?” she hisses, pushing past the flames tickling her cheek and reveling in the way her brother takes a step back.

Zuko frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“Mother!” Azula spits. “Did she send you here to torment me?”

She can feel her inner fire desperately attempting to burst forth, rattling in the Agni-forsaken cage that these _cowards_ keep it locked in.

“You’re my sister,” he says slowly. “I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“ _Alright?_ You’ve left me trapped here with these savages for a year!”

Zuko flinches and looks away. “I know, and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t give me back my throne!”

Her brother’s eyes narrow, then, and it’s a wonderful familiarity—this anger, this _rage,_ is the real Zuko she knows (and, by extension, the Zuko she knows how to manipulate the best.)

“It’s not like that!” he snarls, fists clenching at his sides.

She’s fully prepared for him to attack her, or at the very least spit out one of those dramatic breaths of fire he’s so fond of.

Instead, he closes his eyes, exhales, and _apologizes._

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his expression so fiercely honest that Azula can’t help but commend whoever finally managed to teach her spineless brother how to lie. “I didn’t come here to fight, and I know this must be hard for you.”

What right does he have to act so fucking sincere? To act like he’s better than her, the _real_ prodigal child, and leave her sniveling like an emotional fool?

 _“You’re weak,”_ Mother whispers. _“This is why I always loved him more.”_

Azula clenches her teeth at Mother’s voice, clasping her hands over her ears and threading her fingers in her hair, clenching and pulling and ripping as though the pain could withdraw the wretched _thing_ in her mind.

“Shut up!” she grits out, tugging even harder against her skull.

Zuko hovers awkwardly above the sofa he still hasn’t sat on, hands shaking in strange aborted movements towards her.

“Is it Mom?” he asks.

His voice is rough like sandpaper and broken glass and blizzards of ash and dust whirling around her.

“She won’t leave,” Azula whispers, gazing up at her brother as though he somehow holds the ticket to her freedom. (In a way, she supposes, he does—he is her way back to Caldera, the stepping stone to her throne, the final impediment to Mother’s adoration.)

Azula’s glare hardens, her anger returning at full strength as she shouts, “Why won’t she _leave?”_

She furiously blinks away the tears rising unbidden, wishing for the umpteenth time that she had her bending so that she could steam the water right out of her eyes. (That, or access to a sharp object _not_ under lock and key with which to gauge her tear ducts out.)

“She’s gone,” Zuko says slowly. “She can’t hurt you.”

He speaks as though she’s some spooked animal, as though she’s no better than the ostrich-horse she slaves away over, braiding his mane until she swears her fingers bleed.

She’s on him in a flash, shoving him against the wall and pinning him there with a hand around his throat.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snarls, leaning forward until their noses are practically touching.

“Then tell me,” he rasps, using up his precious air like the idiot he is.

She presses harder against his neck, feels his pulse thundering beneath her fingers. His panicked gaze is wide enough that she swears she catches her reflection in his pupils, shrouded in inky blackness and shimmering under unshed tears.

It’s worse in his left eye, slitted and warped and twisting what little Azula can see of herself into sickening contortions.

 _“It should have been you,”_ Mother hisses again, and why can’t she shut up, just _shut up,_ because she wasn’t even _there_ that day, she was gone gone _gone,_ and Azula was alone, so fucking _alone,_ and...

_Azula may have been younger, then, but what she lacked in years she more than made up for in intellect. She knew, from the moment that she overheard the uproar that Zuko caused in that fateful war meeting—over a hapless batch of useless recruits, no less—that his disrespect would have consequences. She knew, once word of the Agni Kai spread like a virus through the palace walls, that her hotheaded brother’s overconfidence would surely cost him any hope of victory._

_And she knew before that fateful duel began, in the same way she knew what fingerprint-shaped evidence Zuko hid beneath the sleeves of his childhood tunics, that the man facing her brother in the arena would not be the general._

_No, she was not surprised when Father demanded retribution for the disrespect he’d been shown; just as she was not surprised when Zuko refused to fight him, instead groveling at his feet like a coward._

_From where she sat in the stands, she couldn’t make out much of what her brother said; she knew it was a pathetic plea for mercy, though, and that was all that mattered. Father denounced him as honorless, all but stripping him of his title of crown prince—and putting Azula next in the line of succession._

_She’d laughed, then, loud enough to draw the attention of some of the nobles seated around her. Their stares of intrigue, tinged with something disgustingly close to disapproval, only made her laugh harder. One day, they would all bow to her._

_She continued to giggle even as Father loomed over Zuko’s prostrated body, placing a hand on his cheek and declaring his punishment:_ “You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”

_Her brother’s miserable begging pitched into a desperate scream as Father’s palm ignited in a blinding flash, and Azula couldn’t look away. She could only watch, chest still heaving with guttural laughter, as Zuko writhed upon the marble floor, cries simpering off into silence as his body sagged, boneless._

_She saw, out of the corner of her eye, the way her sniveling uncle had flinched and looked away from the flames, the same ones projected over Azula’s eyes with each blink even after they’re extinguished. Uncle’s sadness didn’t make sense; didn’t he understand this should be a day of celebration?_

_Zuko, irrefutably unfit for the throne, was to be banished by the Fire Lord’s royal decree. The crowd heard this and cheered, swallowing up Azula’s—_ Crown Princess Azula’s _—high-pitched peals of laughter._

_The hearty clenching in her abdomen continued to send spurts of giggles past her mouth, sneaking out in puffs of smoke that make the muscles of her cheeks sore. She was practically wheezing by the time she returned to her chambers, clutching at her stomach as though she could force the painful contractions to stop._

_She laughed and laughed, tears streaming down her face and staining the collar of her dress robes. She laughed until she fell to her knees, bouts of untennered joy wrenching her insides until she fell to her knees in the bathroom and heaved her guts out into the porcelain tub._

_Her hand shook as she wiped the sick off of her lips, staining her skin the same earthy brown as the chocolate roll one of the servants had baked her that morning. (The same shade as her brother’s face as it burned and blackened, poisoning the air with the stench of charred flesh and singed hair.)_

_She turned the faucet on, rinsed her hand, and watched the remnants of her breakfast swirl down the drain without a trace._

The warped skin is mocking her, now, angry and red and igniting a cold fury within her that threatens to consume her.

Slowly, like a woman possessed, Azula raises her hand and places it over her brother’s left eye. The scar beneath her palm is rougher than she expected, a strange combination of raised tissue and melted divots. She can feel Zuko tremble, though he makes no move to shunt her off; she realizes, then, that he hasn’t fought back this entire time.

“Why?” she asks, leaning in close and loosening her grip on his neck.

Zuko inhales violently, and his voice is barely a whisper when he replies, “Why what?”

And that is the question, isn’t it? The ever-present, ever-burning phrase on the tip of her tongue and in the back of her mind. There are so many things she wants to say to him, so many half-baked thoughts she can’t seem to translate into speech.

Why didn’t Zuko defend himself from Father? Why did he defect when she offered him a chance at glory? Why did he jump in front of a lightning bolt and make her hurt him?

_(Why does she have the sickening suspicion that he never spent a single day missing her?)_

None of these are the words that tumble out of her mouth before she can hold them back.

“Why do you keep leaving me?”

“Azula, you know I never wanted to—“

 _“No,”_ she interrupts. “No, she left, and then _you_ left, and it was just me and Father and—“

_—and yelling and responsibilities and ever sought-after pride and the looming threat that Father would treat her just like Zuko and—_

“Azula,” he asks slowly, cutting off her spiral, “did he hurt you?”

 _No, he never raised a hand towards her, she would know, she would_ remember. _Zuko got hurt because he was a failure, but she was perfect, she was Father’s pride and joy, he gave her the throne, he (_ existed in gaps and behind closed doors closed eyes and black spots in her mind and moments lost and aches from nowhere) _cherished her, he knew she was honorable._

“No,” she says. “No, Father _loved_ me!”

But it seemed she had hesitated too long, and she’s close enough to his _(scarred warped ruined)_ face to see his eyes widen almost imperceptibly.

“You’re wrong!” she yells, shoving him back against the wall again before he can speak. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“No, Azula,” he chokes out. “ _He_ was wrong. He was cruel, and he was wrong, and—“

 _“Shut up!”_ she shrieks. “I’m not like you, Zuko! Father knew that, he _loved me_ , he’d never hurt me, he—“

“It’s okay,” he says, and _why is he so fucking calm?_ “I used to think the same thing.”

Azula scoffs. “Then you’re stupider than I thought.”

He looks unsure, then, a war of emotions on his face that he _still_ hasn’t learned how to mask. It’s funny, so funny that Azula just has to laugh, the sound high and clear and making even her own skin crawl. It echoes like her giggles _that day,_ the day that spoiled everything, and she feels that same loneliness freezing the blood in her veins and she can’t stop, she’s laughing, and Mother’s laughing in her ear, laughing _at her,_ and she’s numb but she still feels it all too much.

“I want to go home,” she chokes out. “Please, I just want to go home.”

“You will,” Zuko says, his hands gripping her biceps and pulling her back into her body. “I promise.”

And Azula, for all her intelligence and planning and drive to win at this game like she’s won all the others, can’t stop herself from believing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry for this feel free to yell at me in the comments


	5. regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka has learned, over the years, that if there’s one thing Zuko hates, it’s being wrong. But, considering the fact that Zuko is currently sitting in an infirmary bed with a ring of bruises on his neck, he’d say he’s more than earned it.
> 
> “See? I told you it was a bad idea.”
> 
> or: zuko is a hot mess by every possible definition. sokka both hates and loves it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for descriptions of injuries, referenced homophobia, off-screen violence, & implied sexual content

Sokka has learned, over the years, that if there’s one thing Zuko hates, it’s being wrong.

Well, okay, Zuko actually hates many things—so many things, in fact, that Sokka could probably fill an entire library with lists of them (though ever since his encounter with a certain freakish owl, libraries have been high up on his _own_ tally of despised stuff, right next to spirit wolves and vegetarianism).

But, considering the fact that Zuko is currently sitting in an infirmary bed with a ring of bruises on his neck after ignoring all seven-hundred of Sokka’s warnings about his psychopath of a sister, he’d say he’s more than earned it.

“See? I _told_ you it was a bad idea.”

(He hopes the childish smugness masks the panic that’s been building steadily behind his ribcage since the day before.)

Zuko just sighs and hangs his head, staring resolutely at the half-full teacup that the healer had forced into his hands earlier. It now rests on the corner of his bedside table, stark white china against the deep maroon of the drapes lining the walls of the private room.

“It was my fault.” His voice is raspier than usual, and each strained syllable sends Sokka’s concern ratcheting up another notch.

“How in La’s name is it _your_ fault,” Sokka all but snaps, “that Azula attacked you?”

“She wasn’t ready,” he says, staring down at his lap. “I shouldn’t have gone.”

“She tried to kill you.”

“That’s nothing new.”

Of course—how could Sokka forget that, when it comes to his boyfriend’s family, murder is more common than love?

“In what world does that make it okay?”

“The one where she’s my fucking sister!” Zuko snarls, retracting his fists as they begin smoking at his sides.

Sokka flinches back on instinct; for a second, all he sees is the angry prince that terrorized _his_ sister across the globe.

“Fuck.” Zuko’s voice is rough, even worse than when he first arrived at the palace in a suspiciously high collar just hours after being strangled. “Agni, I- I’m sorry.”

He lets his head fall into his still-smoldering hands, not even wincing at the heat. “You can go, if you want.”

”Do you want me to?” Sokka asks.

Zuko looks up at him, his face almost sickly under the infirmary’s harsh lighting; even as pale as his skin usually appears compared to the burgundy ridges of his scar, the discoloration around his throat and the dark circle of exhaustion under his right eye only accentuate it.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually, turning away to pick at a loose thread on his robes.

Sokka sighs and leans over to place his hands on top of Zuko’s, stilling the motion; but at his boyfriend’s sharp exhale at the contact, he immediately pulls back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Zuko hurriedly replies, shoving his fists into his pockets (as if that isn’t incredibly suspicious).

Frowning, Sokka tries to gently coax one of Zuko’s arms back out—and it must be his lucky day, because his boyfriend only acts like a stubborn asshole for a few seconds before relenting.

His hand is warm in Sokka’s, radiating that signature firebender heat that the Sokka of just a few years ago would have laughed at the mere notion of deriving comfort from. He can feel the rough calluses from years of sword-fighting where they skim over his palm with a slight tremor, the brush of the raised scars on Zuko’s fingertips from lightning entering and exiting his body.

The canvas of his boyfriend’s skin is something with which Sokka is intimately familiar, a map sketched out from nearly a year’s worth of thorough—and he means _thorough_ —exploration. It’s something as intrinsically Zuko as his molten gold eyes and inability to tell a good joke, a facet of the kaleidoscope of little quirks that Sokka will never stop uncovering.

But the dried blood staining his bruised knuckles? _That_ is a new development.

“What happened?” he murmurs, gently running his thumb over the split skin.

Zuko shrugs and looks away. “It’s not important.”

“Nuh uh,” Sokka replies, shaking his head. “You forfeited your right to downplay things when you didn’t even tell me you were back!”

“I was...busy.”

“What, punching drywall?”

Zuko smirks, though it comes off as more of a grimace. “Something like that.”

“I can’t believe you,” Sokka groans. “I had to hear from the _cooks_ that you were with the healers.”

Zuko raises his brow. “You were in the kitchens?”

“They were making those breakfast pastries and it smelled really good and- and that’s beside the point!” he splutters, face reddening at Zuko’s grin of amusement. “Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like- like—“ Sokka stammers. “Like _that!”_

“Wow, Sokka,” Zuko deadpans. “Very descriptive.”

“You’re just trying to distract me!”

The quirk of Zuko’s lips at his accusation, the unfairly sultry glint in his eyes, is doing something dastardly to Sokka’s heart. “Is it working?”

His pride says he should lie and deny it, but the curve of Zuko’s mouth and the sliver of pale skin exposed by his open collar and the bruises on his throat not left by Sokka’s teeth say otherwise.

“I think,” Sokka leans forward to whisper, “that if you really wanna distract me, you’re gonna have to try a little harder.”

He hears the oh-so-satisfying hitch of Zuko’s breath before he pulls back with a grin. “Get it? _Harder?”_

“Agni, you’re insufferable,” Zuko mutters, seemingly annoyed (though the flush rising to his face says otherwise). “Look,” he continues, lowering his voice to a whisper, “why don’t you, uh, come by my room tonight?”

“I think you mean come _in_ your room,” Sokka jokes.

He can see the moment the meaning of his words sinks in, because Zuko somehow manages to turn even _redder._

 _“Sokka,”_ he hisses, swatting at his shoulder.

“Sorry, babe. The comedic genius is just part of the package.” He tilts his head to the side, smirking at the pun that his natural skill made without a shred of conscious effort. “Ha. _Pack—“_

“If you finish that sentence,” Zuko interrupts, “I’m breaking up with you.”

Sokka pouts, and is preparing what’s sure to be a witty comeback when there’s a knock on the door.

“Sir,” one of the guards posted outside calls. “Pardon the interruption, but the head of staff wishes to speak to you.”

Sokka holds back the curse of frustration that’s desperate to escape his mouth. It’s not that he dislikes Taizin, per se; for the most part, the man actually respects the input and presence of the foreign dignitaries that many prefer to call savages.

But even if he doesn’t insult Sokka for his heritage, he’d certainly insult him—or, likely, incinerate him on the spot—if he so much as suspected his so-called “unnatural” tendencies. (Okay, maybe he’s being too harsh—the jerkbender would probably only throw him in jail. But if he found out about _Zuko,_ on the other hand…)

And yes, Sokka understands in the grand scheme of things that a smattering of homophobia is the least of the priorities of a nation trying to undo a hundred years of tyranny, just as he understands that Taizin is one of the few competent individuals actually qualified for his job. The man’s already uncovered five assassination plots, for La’s sake!

None of this changes the way that his heart plummets when Zuko yanks his hand back and gestures frantically to the side door.

“I’ll see you soon?” he asks in a whisper.

Zuko nods, smiling against the quick kiss Sokka presses to his lips before he steals out into the hall.

Sokka sighs as he closes the door softly behind him, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. _Guess it’s time to get back to the regularly scheduled programming of sharpening Boomerang and daydreaming about defiling the Fire Lord._

* * *

There is only one sight in this world that Sokka prefers to Zuko’s o-face, and that’s the tender, sleepy smile that makes itself at home on his lips afterwards. Like this, mellowed out and curled up into Sokka’s side, one would be hard pressed to tell that Zuko was quite possibly the most high-strung, stressed-out ruler in the history of global politics.

“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep thinking so hard.”

And Spirits, Zuko’s _voice._ How could Sokka forget to mention how goddamn _pretty_ he sounds all the time? The raspy way he talks, the breathy way he moans—hell, it should be _illegal._

“Bold of you to assume I’m capable of thinking at all right now.”

Zuko snorts, the motion sending a flare of heat over Sokka’s collarbone. “Stop being so dramatic.”

“I’m serious,” Sokka says, winding his fingers through Zuko’s hair. “Sucked my brain right out of my dick.”

Zuko wrinkles his nose. “You’re disgusting.”

“Really? Because I didn’t hear you complaining when I—“

“Shut _up,”_ Zuko groans, lazily slapping an uncoordinated hand over Sokka’s mouth (and having the audacity to act surprised when Sokka licks it).

He snickers as Zuko attempts to wipe his hand off on his chest, seemingly forgetting that Sokka’s skin isn’t exactly…clean.

“Before you ask why I’m all sticky,” he says, “I’d like to remind you that it’s your fault.”

Zuko just sighs and buries his face even deeper into Sokka’s shoulder in response.

“Careful,” Sokka teases. “If you blush any harder, you might accidentally burn me.”

“Who says it’ll be an accident?”

Sokka chuckles. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

He feels the telltale brush of scar tissue against his arm as Zuko’s features relax, continuing to run his fingers through the wave of inky black hair fanned out across the sheets. They lay like that for a while, simply breathing and _being,_ until Zuko slowly sits up.

“I think we should get cleaned up,” he says with a yawn—one that he quickly chokes on when he seems to realize what he’s said. “I mean, uh, _I_ should get cleaned up, you don’t have to, um, stay if you don’t want, or even—“

“Baby,” Sokka interrupts, his hands now at the appropriate height to rub Zuko’s back. “Do _you_ want me to stay?”

“I mean,” Zuko starts, looking down at the flush now creeping past the star-shaped scar on his chest, “if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother…”

“For the love of Agni,” Sokka mutters as he pushes himself up against the pillows. “Of course I’ll stay.”

Zuko doesn’t even bother trying to hide his sigh of relief, instead grabbing Sokka’s hand and tugging him towards the bathroom.

“So,” Sokka asks as Zuko holds one of his ridiculously fluffy towels under the faucet, “what did Tightass even want earlier?”

“You mean _Taizin?”_ Zuko says pointedly, smirking as he drags the wet cloth across Sokka’s chest—the wet cloth which, like an asshole, he didn’t bother to _heat_ before touching it to Sokka’s _very sensitive_ skin.

He yelps, playfully shoving Zuko away and holding his hands out protectively until his boyfriend relents and warms the water with his bending.

“Anyways,” he continues, wiping the rag down to Sokka’s navel, “apparently Su’s, uh, ‘best friend’ is sick and she needs some time off to take care of her. She’s sending her nephew in to take her place in the meantime.”

Sokka frowns at the verbal air-quotes around “best friend.” “You know you can just say girlfriend, right?”

Zuko winces. “Don’t say that.”

“Come on, it’s not like anyone can hear us,” Sokka reasons. “If they could, they’d be getting _quite_ the earful.”

“Sokka,” Zuko pouts, his face flushing.

“I’m pretty sure it sounds more like ‘ _Sokka_ ,’” he replies, making sure to pitch his voice into an imitation of Zuko’s moans on the last word.

Zuko yanks the towel back and smacks it against Sokka’s arm.

“That sucks, though,” Sokka says, refraining from saying the pun on the tip of his tongue because he’s fairly certain Zuko will roast him alive if he does. “I like Su.”

“I’m pretty sure you just like that she covers for us when you want to have sex in the middle of the day.”

“Which is a perfectly valid reason to like someone!”

Zuko rolls his eyes, and Sokka kisses the bemused expression right off his face.

“Come on,” he says, easing the towel out of Zuko’s hands. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I still have to wash up,” Zuko protests, clinging to the edge of the cloth.

“From what? You may have had your eyes closed, but I seem to recall you only came all over _my_ chest.”

Zuko releases the towel in favor of covering his reddening face with his hands, and Sokka peppers them with kisses until he begrudgingly moves them aside.

“Bed?” Sokka asks again.

Zuko nods and briefly presses his lips to Sokka’s. “Bed.”

* * *

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have dozed off at some point, because the next thing he knows, Zuko is frantically shaking him awake.

“Sokka,” he whispers, his eyes wide as they dart between Sokka’s face and the balcony window. “Get under the bed.”

“What are you—“

“Just do it,” Zuko hisses.

Sokka, even barely awake and scrambling to piece together what the actual fuck is going on, knows better than to argue when his boyfriend looks this serious, so he just nods and rolls over to the side of the mattress. The marble is cold under his toes, a stark contrast to the warmth of the blankets and Zuko’s excessive body heat. 

The chill only grows more biting when he crouches down to scoot himself under the bed frame because, as he is now painfully aware, he is still very much in the nude.

From where he’s curled onto his side, he can see a pair of pale feet quietly padding across the floor. He shifts to follow Zuko’s footsteps as he creeps towards the far wall, the night’s silence soon cut through by the ringing sound of his dao unsheathing.

Sokka’s heart plummets into his stomach; suddenly, he’s all too aware of the current situation.

That doesn’t make him any more prepared for the explosion of glass raining down from the shattered balcony window.

He winces in sympathy as the shards slash through Zuko’s thin sleeping pants— _at least he_ has _pants,_ Sokka thinks ruefully—and then bites back his own groan as a few stray pieces scatter into his hiding spot, slicing into his bare skin.

He’s sure the pain will only worsen later, but the adrenaline surging through his body allows him to push it aside for now in favor of watching Zuko dart towards the attacker.

The room, once only illuminated by slivers of moonlight, brightens with a telltale _whoosh_ of firebending. Sokka can’t make out much of what’s going on from this vantage point, but he’s fairly certain inching closer would only result in singed eyebrows.

Zuko’s blades swing into Sokka’s line of sight, dispelling a volley of flames from their edges before they’re extinguished. Huh—the assailant must be a firebender, too.

They send another burst of fire towards Zuko, which he blocks and counters with one of his own. It’s clear that Zuko is the better bender: while there’s obviously power behind the other person’s attacks, Zuko’s flames blaze hotter, tightly controlled columns of red heat bursting from his swords and tinged with a whirl of greens and purples.

(Besides Azula’s scathing blue, Sokka’s only seen such magnificent shades of colors in Zuko and Aang’s bending. It never fails to take his breath away.)

“What do you want?” Zuko grunts as he swings his dao.

There’s another flash of flames, the cracking of glass splintering beneath combat boots and, Sokka realizes with a rush of nausea, Zuko’s bare feet.

“To finish the job the Fire Lord started!” the assassin shouts.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” Zuko replies through what sounds like gritted teeth, “but _I’m_ the Fire Lord now.”

He lunges forwards with a burst of speed, expertly dodging and weaving until he manages to pin the assassin against the wall. They stop struggling, and Sokka, based on the soft clang of metal sliding across itself, can only assume that Zuko has his blades crossed at their throat.

“Traitor!” they shriek. “Death to the imposter!”

Their screaming, which continues to ring in Sokka’s ears even after they close their mouth, is enough to finally alert the guards that something is amiss. They burst in with weapons at the ready, then hurry to Zuko’s side when they take in the scene of the attack (which they _really_ should have noticed earlier).

“Are you alright, my Lord?”

“I’m fine,” Zuko replies, lying like the liar he is.

He lowers his swords as one of the guards restrains the assassin, and the blades vibrate in time with the tremble of his hands.

“Are those cuffs chi-blocking?” he asks, allowing the second guard to nudge him aside as she uses her own blade to brush some of the glass into a pile.

“Yes, sir,” her partner answers.

“Good. Escort them to the holding cell. Find out if they’re working alone.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

Sokka hears the jangling of chains, and watches as the attacker is all but dragged out of the room, leaving only Zuko and the second guard (and Sokka, but he’s naked and hiding under a mattress so he doesn’t think he really counts).

“Lord Zuko,” the remaining guard says, “Shall I send someone to clean up the rest of the glass?”

“That’s alright, Lyru,” Zuko sighs. “I’m tired. I’ll just send for someone in the morning.”

“But sir—“ Lyru begins to protest.

“I said I’m tired!” Zuko shouts.

There’s the faint sound of glass crunching as Lyru flinches back.

“O-of course,” she stammers. “I’ll take my leave, then.”

Her knees bend slightly as she bows, and it’s only a matter of seconds before she’s scampered out of the room.

“Fuck!” Zuko yells as the door swings shut, stumbling back until his thighs hit the bed.

The mattress dips downward when Zuko all but throws himself onto it, making it infinitely more difficult for Sokka to get out from underneath it. He makes sure to crawl out on Zuko’s right side, as he’s not exactly looking to get his face melted off if he pops up in his boyfriend’s blind spot. ( _Oof, rough choice of words right there, brain._ )

“Hey,” Sokka says, hoisting himself up. “Are you okay?”

Zuko blinks as he turns to him, his good eye wet with frustrated tears. “I’m fine.”

Sokka frowns and steps closer. “Are you sure about that?”

He reaches his hand out to inspect for injuries himself, but freezes when Zuko flinches back.

“I’m _fine,”_ he snaps again.

“You’re not.”

“I am,” Zuko protests, his vehemence already dwindling. “I- I have to be.”

“Zuko,” Sokka says softly. “You’re allowed to not be okay. Hell, you almost died twice today.”

“So what? Do I get a medal?”

“What you _get,”_ Sokka corrects, sliding onto the blankets beside him, “is a worried boyfriend.”

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Sokka gently rests his hand on Zuko’s thigh. “Maybe I want to.”

There’s something weirdly warm and wet against his skin, and he’d be cracking all sorts of sex jokes about it if his palm didn’t come back swathed in shades of crimson when he removed it.

“Shit,” he says, glancing between the blood and the series of cuts blending into the dark fabric of Zuko’s pants. “You’re bleeding.”

“Oh.” Zuko sounds _way_ too calm right now, but at least he doesn’t protest when Sokka asks him to make some light.

The sight illuminated by the flame cupped in Zuko’s left hand is not a pretty one. Gashes litter both of his legs, most of the cuts still sluggishly bleeding. He orders Zuko to strip to better assess the damage, but his boyfriend stops with a curse once he drags his pants down past his ankles.

It isn’t hard to see why: embedded in the soles of his feet are no less than ten shards of glass. Tui and La, it’s painful just to _look_ at it.

Zuko follows Sokka’s gaze, swallowing thickly. “How good are you at first aid?”

Sokka shrugs. “Good enough to know that it’s gonna hurt.”

Surprisingly—or, rather, unsurprisingly, considering this is the same man who swam through arctic waters less than 24 hours after almost getting blown up—Zuko doesn’t complain once as Sokka removes the bloodied glass. 

“You know,” he says as he ties a makeshift bandage around the cuts, “for some reason I feel like you weren’t this great of a patient for my sister.”

Zuko shrugs. “Maybe you just have a better bedside manner.”

“I’m telling Katara you said that.”

“Don’t you dare!”

Sokka laughs as he climbs back onto the bed beside Zuko, tugging him up so that his head rests on the pillows.

“Goodnight,” he says, pressing a kiss to Zuko’s forehead.

“‘Night,” Zuko mumbles as he closes his eyes.

Even though they spend the rest of the night nestled in each another’s arms, Sokka has a sneaking suspicion that neither of them actually gets any sleep.


	6. exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war-torn world waits for no man, and running himself ragged is the least Zuko can do.
> 
> or: zuko is Tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for references to homophobia, sex, and abuse

Zuko, despite spending the entire night staring at the ceiling, can’t bring himself to get out of bed until the first rays of daylight crest the horizon. He inhales deeply as he sits up, attempting to draw the sun’s energy into his lungs and pretending its warmth will somehow rid him of the constant heaviness of his exhaustion.

Sokka stirs at his heavy breathing and presses a sleepy kiss to Zuko’s thigh. “G’mornin’.”

Zuko smiles and strokes at the light hairs at the back of Sokka’s neck. “Time to get up,” he says softly.

“Do I have to?” Sokka groans.

Zuko wishes he could say no, that he could spend the rest of the morning wrapped in blankets and Sokka’s strong arms; but he knows, just as Sokka does, that it simply cannot be.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, letting his fingers wander to the soft fuzz on the closely cropped side of Sokka’s head.

“It’s fine,” Sokka replies, as if they don’t both know it’s a lie.

He sits up beside Zuko with a yawn, stretching his arms out and cracking his back as he does so. “Clothes?”

“Oh,” Zuko says, blushing as he remembers that Sokka is still very much naked, “uh, right.”

He stands, trying his best to hide his wince at the painful pressure it puts on his injured feet, and scrounges for Sokka’s discarded clothes. He tosses them onto the bed as he comes across them, some articles (read: his gross socks) more hastily than others.

He looks away as Sokka dresses as though he isn’t intimately familiar with every inch of his body, trying to ignore the instinctual shame that roils in his gut. He blames it on the stress of the night before because the alternative—that he’s only deluding himself into thinking this isn’t _wrong—_ is so much worse.

He stiffens as he feels Sokka’s arms wrap around him from behind, but soon relaxes into his hold.

“I’ll see you later?” Sokka asks, pressing his mouth to the back of Zuko’s neck.

Zuko nods shakily, and turns to leave a quick kiss on Sokka’s lips.

He pretends he doesn’t see the slight droop of Sokka’s shoulders as he sneaks out the door, catching the beginning of a tired greeting to the few guards Zuko trusts not to gossip before it closes behind him.

Zuko sighs, scrubs his hand across his face, and gets ready for the day. Soon, he’ll have to call someone to fix the remnants of his window. He’ll find Lyru and apologize for acting like an asshole (and give her a raise while he’s at it), and then suffer through the drudgery of meetings in his never-ending quest to undo his nation’s cruelty. He’ll play nice, and act civil (even though all he wants to do is scream), and receive nothing but thinly-veiled hatred in response.

(He’ll pretend that the weight of the crown isn’t slowly crushing him.)

For now, he just sits and tries to remember how to breathe.

* * *

Days bleed into weeks, each and every one of them steeped in a monotonous cycle of politics and insomnia. He knows Sokka worries about him, and he spends the majority of the brief moments they share reminding him to eat and all but dragging him into bed because “Spirits, when was the last time you slept?”

(Zuko, for the life of him, can never seem to remember the answer.)

But the war-torn world waits for no man, and running himself ragged is the least Zuko can do.

The Harmony Restoration Movement is still at a stalemate, and Zuko can’t justify sending in even more troops to help with the withdrawal efforts right now. King Kuei is, predictably, pissed about this, but he’s at least smart enough to understand that slow progress is still better than nothing.

The situation in the Fire Nation itself is no better; every time Zuko thinks he’s solved one problem, another seven pop up in its place. There’s the steadfast refusal to reform the education curriculum, and the wave of traumatized veterans returning to find themselves homeless, and the outcroppings of extremely vocal (and often violent) dissenters who somehow find Zuko to be both too radical and not radical enough.

And now, though Zuko _really_ doesn’t understand why it’s so important, there’s the Fire Lily Festival next month.

 _“It’s our tradition,”_ his advisors remind him.

 _“As was tyranny and genocide,”_ he almost bites back.

He can’t argue, though, because as absurd as he finds the idea of a festival when people are still living in fear and dying in the streets, it’s a symbol of hope and unity. At least, he thinks it _can_ be—the celebrations he remembers from his childhood weren’t signs of anything but despotism and propaganda.

So he pours over plans and schedules, budgets out the cost of entertainment and food and flowers. He enlists calligraphers to draw up invitations to important diplomats, and drafts his own (admittedly messier) personal letters to his friends and Uncle. He seals each scroll of parchment with the Fire Nation insignia pressed into deep maroon wax he melts on with the tip of his finger, and personally brings them to the royal messenger hawks for added precaution.

(He doesn’t know which would be worse: igniting political tensions by accidentally failing to invite any foreign dignitaries or losing the rare chance to see the only people he truly cares about.)

If he had the free moment to think about it, he’d find it wholly bizarre to think that at this time last year, he was training the Avatar to defeat his father. But he doesn’t, because he barely has time to breathe, let alone worry about things beyond surviving the immediate future and keeping his nation from collapsing. (The two things are, admittedly, inextricably linked, because he swears someone tries to kill him every time he blinks.)

That doesn’t stop the memories from plaguing his dreams when he manages to get a wink of shut-eye, though. He’s started screaming in his sleep again, waking up clutching at the left side of his face and trying to quell the flames he swears are devouring his skin. Other times it’s to the taste of ozone as lightning tears through his body, or the haunted look in Azula’s eyes when she pinned him to the wall, or the rejection of a mother who’s long forgotten him.

(The worst are the ones where he burns Sokka, because he knows with sickening certainty they aren’t just figments of his subconscious.)

He’s well aware his nightmares—his whimpering, his near violence when he wakes up unaware of where he is—keep his boyfriend up when he sleeps over, so he learns to stay awake on those nights he doesn’t spend alone, instead just pressing himself against Sokka’s chest and listening to his heartbeat.

He’s put Sokka through hell and back, and it isn’t fair in the slightest. Sokka left his tribe and his sister and the open sky to move to Caldera. He left everything, _everything_ behind, and for what? For Zuko to act like an emotional wreck and push him away because that’s the only way he knows how to deal with his feelings? For him to lose sleep and friends and family for a relationship shrouded in secrecy and lies?

Maybe he’s here out of pity. Maybe he just likes the sex. Maybe he’s being manipulated by Zuko because he is still Ozai’s son, and he has more than enough scars to prove it.

If Zuko was a less selfish man, he would’ve asked Sokka to go home long ago.

(If Zuko was a less selfish man, he wouldn’t have let himself have this kind of love in the first place.)

He knows he has to make it up to him somehow, to find some way to prove he’s more than just a ticking time bomb of a burden. It’s been his goal for as long as he can remember, and the phantom pain of bruised knees and burnt shoulders and _respect respect respect_ haunts the palace like a spectre. 

He knelt before his father and treated his commands as gospel. He offered Jet his weary body, let him touch and bite and fuck him however he pleased for any sort of reprieve from the numbness in his bones. He believed every single one of Azula’s lies and promises of honor on the slim chance they might be true.

Is that what it would take, then? Submission?

A small part of him protests that it hadn’t been that way with Uncle—that when Zuko, thirteen and half-blind and constantly screwing up, flinched particularly hard at his uncle’s raised voice, he’d been met with a teary hug rather than punishment. (He’d forgiven Zuko again at the White Lotus camp years later, even after he was certain he’d burned the bridge between them beyond repair.)

And while his relationship with Uncle may be a little strained from the distance, at least the other party isn’t decomposing beneath Lake Laogai or dangerously unstable or rotting in prison _(and bruising and bleeding and cackling as fists met flesh over and over and over)._

His conclusion? He needs to think of Sokka like Uncle, meaning he has to do something nice, but not at the expense of himself. It’s far easier said than done, considering every single coherent thought seems to have fled from his mind.

He sighs. _Agni, why is this so fucking hard?_

He stares down at the stack of papers in front of him, lines of text wavering in and out of focus. He’s fairly certain they’re the latest import ledgers, but they may also be the newest batch of reparation requests. Or, better yet, maybe it’s a death threat, because why bother sending someone into the palace every other fucking day when you could just send a godforsaken letter telling him to off himself?

He sighs and rubs his temples, letting his gaze drift from the pile of scrolls to the stoic expression of the assistant currently on standby to help him. This one is young, shaggy hair slipping out of his messily gelled coife and only the barest hints of stubble on his chin. He’s probably around Azula’s age, if Zuko had to guess; that thought, strangely, comforts him. He’s also oddly familiar, and Zuko recognizes him as the mostly silent boy who’s been helping out the more experienced assistants.

“You’re Su’s nephew, right?”

The boy startles, staring at Zuko with wide eyes for a moment before composing himself and nodding.

“May I ask for your advice on something?”

“Sure,” he replies.

“Let’s say you had a, uh, friend who’s been away from their home for a long time. What would you do to, you know, cheer them up?”

The boy purses his lips in thought for a moment before shrugging. “I guess I’d bring a little bit of home to them.”

 _A little bit of home._ Zuko may not have the power to manifest a frozen tundra in the middle of a volcano, but he thinks he might know the next best thing. He grabs a few blank sheets of paper and a brush, pausing just before he dips it into the inkwell to glance over his shoulder at the source of his newfound inspiration.

“Thank you, uh…” he trails off as he realizes he doesn’t even know his unsung hero’s name.

“Kei Lo,” the boy replies with a grin. “It’s a pleasure to be at your service.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the time skip but we gettin into the real plot now...


	7. responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d thought the months of endless waiting would end when he finally reached Caldera. He’d thought wrong.
> 
> or: enter kei lo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was gonna be longer but i split it to post part now so happy friday trump has covid
> 
> cw for implied sexual content 
> 
> (also this version of kei lo’s character/backstory is introduced at the end of may your flame burn eternal)

If there’s one thing Kei Lo hates, it’s waiting.

He waited years for his father to return from the battlefront, and then did the same for his brother. He waited months for the New Ozai Society’s ship to take him from Hira’a, and waited four more in the vessel’s hold as they rounded up supporters in the other colonies. He’d thought the waiting would end when he finally reached Caldera.

He’d thought wrong.

“This is ridiculous!” he groans, staring at the mildewy ceiling above him.

The man assigned the bunk below his, an older fellow by the name of Jora, simply sighs.

“I thought you were the one who _wanted_ to have something to do.”

“Well, yeah,” Kei Lo admits. “But I didn’t think it would be so _boring!”_

Jora clicks his tongue. “I told you, kid. Ukano knows what he’s doing.”

“What? Watching that traitor run our nation into the ground?” He scoffs and crosses his arms. “Maybe Fung had the right idea.”

 _“Fung,”_ Jora says pointedly, “almost blew our entire operation. We just got lucky you were here.”

Kei Lo deflates, letting his legs dangle over the side of his mattress. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“You’ve got spirit,” Jora says, shifting in his bed to look up at Kei Lo. “Hold onto that.”

“I just wish I could do more than sit there and watch.”

“You will,” he assures, “when the time is right.”

Kei Lo sighs. “Thanks, Jora.”

“Hey, that’s Lieutenant Jora to you!” he corrects. “Now go get me some of that stew over there. This old man’s legs don’t work as well as they used to.”

Part of Kei Lo wants to protest that Jora, despite his age and metal prosthetic foot, still beat him to the best bed in the barracks when they’d first arrived. But the other part of Kei Lo, the part that spent long, lonely nights at sea agonizing over his mother’s fate, craves the parental comfort that his (admittedly cranky) bunkmate provides.

“Sure thing,” he says as he hops down to the floor, _“Lieutenant.”_

* * *

Kei Lo must have somehow proven his favor with the traitorous Fire Lord after their strange conversation a few days prior, because now, rather than simply blending in and observing as Ukano commanded, he’s being assigned actual tasks. He should be thrilled, considering this places him even closer to the inner workings of the royal mockery of a political machine.

He is decidedly _not_ thrilled when he learns his new job is that of a glorified party planner.

“This is so _stupid,”_ he grumbles to himself as he trudges through the streets of Caldera.

He kicks at a few stray pebbles as he walks, his hands fisted in his pockets. He’s supposed to be at council meetings gathering intel, goddamnit! But no, Taizin just _had_ to send him to deliver the contract for the fire lilies. He doubts his dear old “Aunt” Su had to do any of this shit before she was so unceremoniously disposed of.

 _Probably because they didn’t think she was an incapable child,_ Kei Lo thinks bitterly.

(He can practically hear Jora chastising him with the reminder that it's his youth that allowed him to infiltrate the palace staff without suspicion in the first place; that doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.)

He glances down at the address on the paper that he’s actively trying not to crumple in frustration. It should be on this block; so then where…?

Aha! There, on the purple awning across the street: _Mura’s Flower Shop._

A bell tinkles as he pushes the door open, the sweet scent of fresh blossoms washing over him in a wave. The store is practically overflowing with plants, a spread of petals and shrubs in vibrant shades he hadn’t known could even _exist_ in nature.

The only spot devoid of color is the wave of jet black hair cascading over the shoulders of quite possibly the most beautiful girl Kei Lo has ever seen.

He doesn’t realize he’s staring until he hears her clear her throat.

“Sorry,” he says, blushing. “What was that?”

The girl sighs, readjusting her apron. “I asked what you wanted.”

Her voice is incredibly flat, which somehow fits seamlessly with her tightly wound buns and disinterested expression. She’s effortlessly gorgeous, high cheekbones and catlike eyes rimmed with dark liner.

“Are you just going to stand there?”

Kei Lo jolts back into his body. “Oh, uh, yeah.”

She arches a single brow, and it takes Kei Lo’s dumbstruck brain a moment to process just what he’s said.

“Wait, I meant no!” he says hurriedly. “I have this.”

He thrusts out the scroll he’s clutching far too tightly, wincing at how undeniably awkward the action is. The girl doesn’t so much as bat an eye as she takes the paper from him to read, and the way their hands almost brush leaves Kei Lo’s heart thundering.

He takes the opportunity of the girl’s distraction to wipe his embarrassingly sweaty palms on his pants, praying he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels.

“This isn’t for me.”

Kei Lo glances back up, his confusion momentarily shoving his jitters to the backburner. “What?”

The girl waves the scroll in annoyance, her face projecting _“are you stupid?”_ loud and clear.

“But you’re Mura, right?” he asks.

The girl shakes her head.

“But,” he splutters, “I thought this was Mura’s Flower Shop?”

What was meant as a statement—because he _knows_ how to read, okay?—ends up coming out as more of a question. Curse this girl and her unbelievably disarming attractiveness.

“It is,” she replies. “She’s my aunt.”

“Oh.” Kei Lo swears his face is on fire at this point. “Sorry, I’m kind of new at this.”

“Clearly.”

“I’m Kei Lo,” he says, holding his arm out before he can stop himself.

The girl stares at his outstretched hand; but instead of shaking it, she just drops the scroll back in his palm. “Mai.”

 _Mai._ Spirits, what a pretty name.

“My aunt should be back in a few hours.”

Kei Lo nods. “I’ll just wait here, then?”

Mai shrugs. “Whatever.”

She turns back to her work, trimming the smaller bushes with a precision that remains Kei Lo achingly of his mother. He wants to talk to her, to find out all of her likes and dislikes, and maybe make her laugh or even smile (though he suspects trying to force conversation with her may result in his untimely death).

So he simply watches and waits for Mura in silence, feeling warmer than he has in a long while.

* * *

“She was _gorgeous,”_ he tells Jora dreamily that night.

“That’s nice, kid.”

He sounds uninterested (as usual), but Kei Lo smiles anyways.

* * *

He makes a point to walk by the flower shop regularly. He doesn’t exactly have much of a spendable income, what with the majority of his spendings absorbed by Ukano to help fund the movement, so often he just watches Mai through the window. She’s pretty while she works, and even prettier on those few occasions he has enough money saved to have an excuse to talk to her.

Once, while having her explain in depth the best upkeep practices for lavender plants, he swears he sees her grin. (Though, thinking back on it, it could have also been a grimace.)

He gathers fairly quickly that Mai dislikes working in the store, and from the snippets of conversations he hears between her and her aunt, she was only forced to find employment in the first place after the end of the war. It isn’t exactly surprising; after all, who _hasn’t_ been fucked over by the imposter on the throne?

The knowledge makes every second he spends in the palace “helping” the Fire Lord that much worse. Ukano has rejected his ideas for sabotage, calling them too risky; Kei Lo argues that, unlike Fung, _he_ actually knows how to be stealthy. 

Still, each time, the society’s so-called “leader” shoots him down.

Well, Kei Lo has had enough of waiting. It’s time he takes matters into his own hands.

* * *

Sneaking around the palace after dark is surprisingly easy.

Kei Lo isn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t the frankly embarrassing lack of security. The guards hardly notice him as he slinks through the halls, even though he’s clearly not part of the overnight staff. (It definitely helps that no one here works during the daylight hours, so all it takes is a simple lie about being an employee’s child to dissuade any suspicion.)

He already knows the layout of a fair share of the servants’ passages, and the torchlit pathways are now almost completely deserted. He commits to memory the positions of the hidden exits, particularly those unguarded, for future reference.

(He thinks of the praise Ukano will undoubtedly shower him with after he presents him with this invaluable information. He imagines the way his shock will morph into pride, the way his brother will smile down upon him with the warmth of Agni’s glow.)

The only section of the palace he has yet to map out is the residential quarters. This wing is slightly smaller than the others, organized in clusters of diplomat housing and guest rooms. But Kei Lo only has eyes for one room: the Fire Lord’s chambers.

Anyone with half a brain cell would know that, logically, the best time for an assassination is while the target is exposed by the vulnerability of unconsciousness. It’s for this exact reason that Kei Lo isn’t at all surprised to see the presence of extra patrols near the regal double doors, a protection of which the traitor is wholly undeserving. It’s sickening _,_ the way peoples’ entire jobs revolve around ensuring an imposter sleeps soundly while he throws the world into chaos.

The night watch is in full force now, dashing any hopes of catching the changing of the guards. He doubts he can sneak around them, and it’s too late to ask any questions without drawing any suspicions.

He sighs and turns back. He’ll have to try again tomorrow.

* * *

The next night, unfortunately, is no better. He gets caught up in an after-dinner meeting about last-minute changes in fire flake vendors, and the pair of guards—the same as the previous day, he notes—have already taken up their positions outside.

Great. Now he _still_ doesn’t know the night watch’s schedule, and it’s all because of the stupid Fire Lily Festival. (After this mess is done, he never wants to see another red flower again for the rest of his life.)

It’s early enough in the evening that he doubts the Fire Lord is actually asleep, so maybe his stakeout effort isn’t all for naught.

“Excuse me,” he says, stepping out of the shadows and putting on his practiced ‘innocent child’ expression.

The guards look over to him, their eyes cold and, luckily for Kei Lo, unfamiliar.

“Can I help you?” one of the women asks.

“I’m one of the Fire Lord’s new assistants,” Kei Lo replies, trying his best to sound timid. “I need to speak with him.”

The guards exchange a glance.

“The Fire Lord isn’t to be disturbed,” her partner says, straightening her headpiece.

“But I have an important message!” he protests.

“Look, I’m sorry, kid, but...“ Her attempt at pity is interrupted by a low sound escaping from behind the door, and she rubs at her forehead with a sigh before finishing with, “...he’s busy.”

“I’ll say,” the first guard mutters with an amused snort.

Kei Lo is confused for a whole five seconds more until the rumbling noise comes again, and this time, he recognizes it for what it is: a moan.

 _Oh._ So the Fire Lord has a lady over. Is he waiting for the right moment to go public with his relationship? Or is he just with a concubine? (Considering the massive disfigurement on his face, he thinks the latter may be more likely.)

“Sorry,” he says, unable to stop a blush from rising to his cheeks. “I’ll come back another time.”

The guards nod, and Kei Lo hurries back down the hall towards the nearest exit. Agni, how can they _stand_ listening to their boss like that?

It isn’t until he’s back in his bunk after fending off Jora’s volley of questions that he realizes that if the traitor does indeed have a secret girlfriend, she can serve as more than just the impetus for the groans of pleasure that Kei Lo would very much like to erase from his memory.

After all, isn’t it easier to overpower someone with a bit of leverage?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways i hate cishet men there i said it


	8. leverage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next step in Kei Lo’s plan—finding out the Fire Lord’s lover’s identity—is harder than anticipated.
> 
> or: kei lo can’t mind his own business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was gonna be part of the previous chapter but i split it bc it got long so here we are 
> 
> cw for mild sexual content

The next step in Kei Lo’s plan—finding out the Fire Lord’s lover’s identity—is harder than anticipated. He’s spent nearly every night at the palace this week, to the point that Jora has given up on asking why he comes home so late. Kei Lo thinks it’s probably better that way.

(After all, what is he supposed to say? _I’ve been lurking outside the traitor’s royal chambers waiting to catch him with his secret girlfriend, and I know that sounds suspicious but it’s actually a good idea in case we need a bargaining chip?_ Yeah, he doubts that would go over well.)

He’s undeniably exhausted, and clearly his strategy of staring at the door isn’t yielding any results; so tonight, he has a new plan of attack.

There’s a balcony a few stories above the Fire Lord’s room, far enough away that the night watch doesn’t deem it necessary to patrol. The jokes on them, though—Kei Lo’s youth gives him the distinct advantage of flexible agility and catlike reflexes.

The air is chilly as he climbs outside, and it burns down his throat as he takes a deep breath before dropping down onto the sill of the window directly below him. From here, it’s only a few jumps until he’s perched on the railing of the traitor’s balcony. 

The curved stone is somewhat slippery under his feet, still slick from the day before’s rain. It’s less than ideal, but Kei Lo has always been light on his feet; and when he presses himself into the junction where the railing meets the palace’s outer wall, he’s able to easily find his balance.

From this vantage point, he’s obscured from view by the curtains lining the glass balcony doors. So long as no one steps outside—unlikely, considering the unpleasant temperature—he should be able to peer into the room undetected.

He leans forward tentatively, poised and ready to run if necessary. But Agni’s favor must be shining upon him, because the room’s sole occupant is hunched over a desk facing the opposite direction.

Kei Lo can only just make out the edges of a scar at this angle, and he slowly creeps down from the railing for a better view. He winces as his feet make contact with the balcony floor, but the figure doesn’t react. In fact, he doesn’t so much as twitch when Kei Lo gently cracks the door open, letting out a bit of blissful warmth and the faint scratching sound of a quill on parchment.

It would be so simple, he thinks, to attack now. The bastard is wholly unaware, and if Kei Lo is stealthy enough—of which his current stalking is proof—he can get a blade to his throat before the Fire Lord so much as blinks.

 _Remember the mission,_ he tells himself. He’s here to gather information, to work as part of something bigger than himself; and his people are counting on him to succeed.

So he sits, chin resting in his hands, and watches.

It’s the most boring thing he’s done in his life; hell, he’d even prefer a double-shift at the tea shop over this. (He thinks about his mother, and wonders how she reacted when she realized he was gone; then he banishes those thoughts, because goddammit he has a job to do.)

By the time the door to the Fire Lord’s chambers creak open, Kei Lo is beginning to seriously pity the guy; really, how the hell could one man have so much paperwork to do?

The arrival of this mysterious new person, though...now _this_ is interesting. At least, he hopes it is—for all he knows, it’s just a servant bringing even _more_ scrolls to read.

But the man who enters is not dressed like any of the staff Kei Lo passed today; in fact, he doesn’t even look like he was from the Fire Nation. His skin is too dark, and the closely shaved sides of his head are clearly done in a foreign style.

The Fire Lord doesn’t so much as look up at his arrival—again, _very_ promising for the Society's prospects.

“Hey,” the man says, leaning against the side of the desk; when he turns, Kei Lo sees a flash of oddly familiar deep blue eyes. “Earth to Zuko.”

Kei Lo frowns; he may despise the Fire Lord, but even _he_ knows he should be addressed by his title. He expects the stranger to be reprimanded, especially when he continues to dig his own grave by waving his hand in front of Zuko’s face to get his attention.

He watches as the Fire Lord jolts in surprise, and winces as he steels himself for the flames he knows will follow.

They never come.

“Oh,” is all Zuko says. “Sorry, Sokka. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Kei Lo’s brain spirals into overdrive as he attempts to process the fact that not only did the Fire Lord _apologize,_ but he did so to a savage from the _Water Tribe._ Because he recognizes him, now—he’s the obnoxious ambassador who can’t shut up for more than five seconds in any of the meetings Kei Lo has attended.

“I thought you said you would take the night off,” Sokka says with a sigh.

“Yeah, well,” Zuko mutters, “that was before the Earth King sent me ten more treaties to look over.”

“Are you saying Kuei is more important than me? I’m hurt.”

“No, it’s just—“

Zuko’s splutters cut off as Sokka leans in to whisper something too quietly for Kei Lo to hear, even as he presses himself closer to the crack in the door. His curiosity is practically eating him alive, especially considering that, when Sokka straightens upright again, the rest of the Fire Lord’s face is red enough to match his scar.

Kei Lo watches as Zuko rises from his desk and follows Sokka towards the center of the room. It’s near enough that he has to curl himself back up in the shadows for fear of being spotted, but the doors to the balcony never swing open. Still, it’s a bit too close for comfort, and Kei Lo is mentally preparing the best route to climb down from the wall when he hears a strange sound.

Ever so cautiously, Kei Lo pokes his head back around the corner. The sight that greets him...doesn’t make sense.

Sokka is pushing Zuko down onto the bed, pinning him under his waist and leaning far enough forward that both of their faces are obscured. Has he been sent to assassinate the traitor on the throne, too? But if he was, why isn’t Zuko fighting back? _Surely_ the Fire Lord’s hands should be ablaze now rather than scrunched in the sheets.

Kei Lo lurches back into hiding once more when he hears another loud noise, frowning in confusion as he does so; because while he may not have experience with killing, he’s pretty sure people the sound people make when they’re being strangled isn’t quite so _lewd._

When he gathers the courage to peek out again, the sight that greets him is even weirder: the Fire Lord’s robes and hair are splayed around his body like a halo, and the corner of a wicked scar in view on the center of his chest—his chest, which Kei Lo can now see, because Sokka’s body has shifted further down, his face now level with Zuko’s pelvis, almost like he’s…

Kei Lo’s hand slips on the stone, and he falls onto his side with a grunt. The sound doesn’t go unnoticed, and he barely has time to scramble back and leap down onto the nearest window sill before Sokka fully turns around and notices him.

His heart pounds as he attempts to catch his breath, his mind whirring a mile a minute. The glimpse he caught lasted less than a second, but Kei Lo knows what he saw: Sokka was blowing the Fire Lord.

Suddenly, it makes all too much since why the Fire Nation has become so chummy with the Water Tribe.

It’s as he’s attempting to process this strange, uncomfortable, _damning_ information that he realizes the key to the New Ozai Society’s success was just handed to him on a silver platter:

If their pitiful excuse of a leader has such an unprofessional relationship with a foreign dignitary, who’s to say the savage isn’t the one actually calling the shots?

Kei Lo scrambles back through the window into the abandoned palace corridor from which he crept out hours ago, forcing himself not to run; he can’t afford to be stopped, not when he finally has concrete information for Ukano.

Because even if his people could accept a banished prince on the throne, they would never, _ever_ accept such a traitor.

* * *

“What was that?”

“Huh?” Zuko’s brain is too hazy from exhaustion and pleasure to process anything beyond the fact that he misses the heat of Sokka’s mouth.

“I thought I saw someone,” Sokka says, his gaze still trained on the balcony.

“Sokka,” he all but whines, hoping his voice doesn’t betray the thinly veiled desperation thrumming through his veins. “There’s nothing out there.”

“Yeah,” Sokka replies slowly, turning his attention back to Zuko. “Sorry. I guess I just imagined it.”

Zuko pulls him down for a languid kiss, his fingers trailing down Sokka’s back.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, grinding his hips upwards and grinning at the groan it draws out of Sokka. “I think I know how you can make it up to me.”

* * *

Ukano’s apartment complex is far more intimidating in the pale moonlight than Kei Lo remembers. He’s only been inside the building once, after Fung had botched his singular job, but that was under the warmth of the afternoon sun.

The adrenaline that propelled him through the streets of Caldera is waning, and by the time he climbs up the two sets of stairs to Ukano’s door, he’s utterly winded. He tries to catch his breath as he knocks, an effort which kicks into overdrive when he’s hit with the sudden fear that the lack of immediate response means he’s misremembered the address.

He’s just about ready to slip back outside when the door finally opens a crack to reveal the scraggly edge of a familiar gray beard.

“Master Ukano,” Kei Lo says with a bow. “I’ve come to speak with you.”

Ukano frowns, making no move to invite him in. “What could possibly be so important that you feel the need to bother me in the middle of the night?”

Kei Lo glances around into the shadows behind him, overcome with the sudden fear that someone may overhear. “It’s a rather sensitive matter,” he finally settles on.

Ukano appears less than impressed.

“Look,” Kei Lo whispers, leaning in closer. “I have some new intel on Zuko that you’re going to want to hear.”

“Very well,” Ukano sighs. “Come in.”

He doesn’t look too thrilled, but Kei Lo suspects that his bedraggled irritation—somehow still intimidating despite the bathrobe he wears and the light indents of a pillow on his cheek—won’t last much longer.

Kei Lo follows Ukano to the kitchen table, barely sliding into the chair across from him before the words come pouring out. “The traitor is being manipulated by a foreign power.”

“Is that so?” Ukano asks, eyes glinting something dangerous under the moonlight streaming in through the window. “Where, pray tell, did you acquire this information?”

Kei Lo grimaces. “I was, um, investigating the night watch.”

“Really? Because I don’t seem to recall assigning you that task.”

“Well, no, but—“

“I trusted you,” he interrupts, “to do what Fung failed to. I cannot allow you to put our operation at risk by—“

“He’s sleeping with a Water Tribe ambassador.” 

The statement slips out before he can stop it, and he immediately winces at the outright show of disrespect. He just wanted to impress Ukano, to push the movement forward; but now, he’s going to get sent back to a life of drudgery in Hira’a, weighed down by the fact that he’s failed his people (and his family).

“Say that again.”

“The Fire Lord and one of the ambassadors, they’re…” he trails off, hoping that the darkness hides his inadvertent blush. (Agni, he still wants to wash his brain out after what he witnessed.) “That’s why he’s so soft on them.”

“That imposter,” Ukano bites out, “left my daughter to be manipulated by a _savage?”_

Kei Lo gulps as he nods at this new, incredibly uncomfortable information.

“I suppose those barbarians are the only ones willing to look past that disgusting scar,” he muses. “Tell me, were her eyes closed?”

Kei Lo isn’t sure if Ukano’s question is a rhetorical one, so he opts to keep his mouth shut. (Plus, he’d only seen the, er, backside…)

“Fung told me about those so-called diplomats,” Ukano continues. “Which one was it? He always said Yuna’s blouse was as low as her intellect.”

Kei Lo shifts uncomfortably as Ukano chuckles at his own joke. He may not go quite as far as to refer to the ambassadors themselves as unintelligent—he has, after all, sat in on a fair share of meetings himself—but the crux of the problem remained the same: a foreigner is manipulating their ruler.

“It was Sokka,” he replies slowly, forcing himself to meet Ukano’s eyes, “of the Southern Water Tribe.”

“Sokka,” Ukano repeats, testing the name out on his tongue, “of the Southern Water Tribe.”

He sees the second Ukano connects the dots as to just who was in the Fire Lord’s bed, the moment that his sneer turns from one of disgusted amusement to a smile so predatory that it leaves Kei Lo’s stomach churning.

“Thank you, young one. You don’t know what you’ve just done for this movement.”

His praise sends a burst of warmth through Kei Lo’s chest.

“Soon,” Ukano says, “the New Ozai Society will rise stronger than ever before. Glory to the Fire Nation!”

Kei Lo grins, an overwhelming sense of _rightness_ thrumming through his veins, as he echoes Ukano: “Glory to the Fire Nation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for clarification kei lo isnt a homophobe he’s just a nationalist and racist (and a fool) bc i just couldn’t bring myself to write that perspective (not that this is,, much better but yknow)  
> but ukano.....


	9. amends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In all the years of their friendship, Mai has never once heard Azula apologize. So when the Azula before her now asks for forgiveness, she’s more than a little skeptical.
> 
> or: mai has some important conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for implied homophobia

In all the years of their friendship, Mai has never once heard Azula apologize. Yes, the words “I’m sorry” occasionally left her lips, but their utterance was never sincere; no, her remorse was nothing more than a farce, a tendril of her masterful manipulation.

So when the Azula before her now asks for forgiveness, Mai is more than a little skeptical.

“Why should I believe you?”

The visitation room is muggy with summer heat, and Mai can feel the back of her dress clinging to her skin. She watches a bead of sweat roll down Azula’s forehead as she stares down at her feet, a demure, dressed-down version of the girl who was once nothing but sharp edges.

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” she says softly.

Mai crosses her arms. “Then why did you?”

“I was mad,” Azula replies, shrugging. “And you know our temper is a family heirloom.”

“That doesn’t give you the excuse to strangle someone.”

“No,” Azula muses, her eyes flicking between Mai’s face and her shoes. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

Mai inhales deeply, willing herself not to say something she’ll regret. _Azula’s sick,_ she reminds herself. _She needs help and support._

(The voice in her head sounds like Ty Lee, a fact which hurts Mai’s heart for a whole other host of reasons.)

“I presume Zuzu’s back to playing leader by now?” Azula asks coolly.

Mai can hear the unspoken _“is he okay?”_ in her words.

“Yes.”

Azula frowns, always too perceptive for her own good. “You hesitated.”

Mai sighs, trying to mould the tangle of thoughts that keep her awake at night into something tangible. She doesn’t miss the way Azula’s brows furrow ever so slightly into something one could almost mistake as concern.

“I haven’t seen him in a while,” she admits.

(Isn’t that how it always is, though? Her, wisting after him for three long years only to be reunited with a boy she hardly recognized? Her, letting him slip through her fingers time and time again?)

She misses him all the more fiercely now, because even if they have their disagreements—even if he broke her heart one too many times—he is still her friend. She meant what she said when she sacrificed herself to help him escape the Boiling Rock what feels like a lifetime ago: she loves Zuko more than she fears his sister.

Maybe she should reevaluate that statement. Maybe fearing Azula is what it will take to keep Zuko safe.

But the Azula before her is not the same one that locked her and Ty Lee up and threw away the key, nor is she the one that wrapped her hands around her brother’s throat the month before. This Azula is not emotionless, no matter how hard her ego may convince her to pretend otherwise.

This Azula almost sounds concerned when she asks, “Why not?”

“It’s...complicated.”

Complicated, meaning the truth would cause a scandal beyond belief. Complicated, meaning that Mai still sees the ring of bruises around Zuko’s neck each time she blinks, the tears streaming down both his and Azula’s faces as a chi-blocker ripped them apart.

(She’s certain the marks must have faded by now, but she has no way of verifying it—Sokka made sure of that when he told her, in no uncertain terms, that he would make her life a living hell if she showed her face around the palace.)

“Is it that Water Tribe boy?”

Mai’s breath catches in her throat. “What?”

“You know,” Azula continues, “silly hair, blue eyes?”

Mai watches Azula warily, not trusting herself to speak.

“It’s a downgrade from you, obviously,” she says. “But surely you saw them together.”

When Mai remains silent, Azula fills the gap. (Maybe she’s also a little bit lonely, just looking for a break in solitude.)

“I have to say, I’ve always suspected my brother was… like that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” _Why did you let me fall for him?_

Azula shrugs. “I thought maybe he’d come to his senses.”

Her tone suggests nonchalance, but Mai sees her words for what they are: a compliment, and a plea for forgiveness.

(Isn’t this how it always goes? Azula needs her, but is determined not to show it; Zuko doesn’t want her, but spends a hell of a time convincing himself of it.)

“You’re right,” Mai admits. “He’s like a tigerdillo. I can’t get within five feet of Zuko without him trying to bite my head off.”

“Ah, boyfriends,” Azula sighs, turning to glance at the chi-blocker standing guard in the corner. “Isn’t that right?”

Mai feels her blood freeze in her veins. She’d forgotten they weren’t alone, forgotten that this was probably all just a ploy by Azula to—

“You know we’re not fighting anymore,” the chi-blocker replies, huffing good-naturedly.

“Really?” If Mai didn’t know better, she’d almost say Azula sounded _interested._

The man nods. “He agreed to let my cousin stay with us for a few more weeks.”

“Good. I thought I was going to have to kill him for you for a second there.”

The air thickens with a strange tension, then, and Mai feels utterly out of her depth until Azula starts honest-to-god _laughing._

“I’m kidding,” she says between giggles. “My, you should have seen your face.”

The chi-blocker rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t bother hiding his smile.

“So what about you, Mai?” Azula asks. “Have you found someone handsomer than my brother? I dare say it isn’t exactly difficult.”

Mai can’t help the way her mind wanders to gray eyes and rosy cheeks and soft lips that she misses so goddamn much that it’s borderline painful.

“Aha! So there _is_ someone!”

She’s been Azula’s friend long enough to know that once she sets her mind to something, she will follow it through to the end, so help her god. ( _It must run in the family,_ she thinks wryly.) But she also knows that, no matter how even-tempered Azula may seem now, any indication that she and Ty Lee are... _involved..._ would set any hard-earned progress and trust back twice as far.

“Well,” she begins, “there’s this boy who comes into the flower shop all the time…”

She spends the afternoon like that, spinning stories about the boy who’s all but stalking her. She isn’t interested in him like _that_ —at least, she doesn’t think she is—but gossipping about crushes with Azula like they did in the royal courtyards of her youth is such an overwhelming comfort that she can’t seem to stop herself.

(Huh. Maybe she _does_ like Kei Lo.)

(Maybe she just likes the way he makes her feel important.)

She hardly realizes how much time has passed before the chi-blocker—whose presence has thankfully gone unneeded—announces that visitation hours are over.

“Well,” Azula says, nodding at Mai as she stands. “I presume you’ll bring me updates on this Kei Lo next week? The girls here are terribly boring.”

Mai sees the request for what it is: an invitation for her to return. “Of course.”

“Good,” she replies. “Oh, and if you see Zuzu, tell him I hope for his sake that he’s out of those high-collared robes. He’s never had the bone structure for them.”

_She wants to know that he’s okay._

Mai decides, then and there, that she will indeed be seeing Zuko, whether Sokka likes it or not.

* * *

It becomes immediately clear that Sokka very much _does not like it._

“You’ve got some nerve coming here,” he says in lieu of a greeting when he stops her in the palace’s entryway.

“I’m here to see Zuko.”

Sokka’s eyes narrow. “He’s busy.”

“Don’t worry,” Mai replies. “You can go back to smothering him as soon as we’re done.”

“Smothering?” Sokka repeats incredulously. “I’m not _smothering_ anyone!”

“Really? Then why haven’t I seen him in weeks?”

“Did you forget what happened the _last_ time you saw him? You let him talk to Azula alone!”

“Let him?” Mai scoffs. “You think I could stop that idiot when he puts his mind to something?”

“I think,” Sokka says, crossing his arms, “that you _wanted_ him to see her.”

“So what if I did?”

“So what if—“ Sokka cuts himself off, running a frazzled hand through his hair. “She’s tried to _kill him,_ Mai!”

“And she’s sorry,” Mai says shortly. “She told me herself.”

Sokka groans. “Can’t you see she’s manipulating you? That’s what she _does!”_

“You don’t know her like I do,” Mai snaps, her composure finally slipping. “And you don’t know Zuko like I do, either.”

She watches him clench his jaw, then his fists, with a sick sort of satisfaction. _Good. Let_ him _hurt for a change._

“You wanna see Zuko so bad?” Sokka hisses. “Have at it. He’s resting down in the infirmary because someone _stabbed him_ earlier.”

The angry whirl in Mai’s brain grinds to a halt. “What?”

“Someone,” Sokka repeats slowly, as though the words haven’t already embedded themselves in her gut, “tried to kill him. _Again.”_

“Oh.” Mai’s voice sounds small, even to her own ears.

“But sure,” he continues sarcastically, “why don’t we go tell him his crazy sister wants to forgive him. What could _possibly_ go wrong?”

“Alright, I get it,” Mai says, gritting her teeth as Sokka’s voice pitches up into an unbearable range. “Just- just tell him I came by, okay?”

Sokka doesn’t bother replying as she turns to leave, and a part of Mai wishes that, even though he clearly has no intentions of passing the message along, he’d at least have the decency to lie.

* * *

Her not-so-secret admirer comes back to the flower shop the next day. He looks, to put it mildly, like shit, and Mai is too exhausted to bother _not_ saying it to his face.

“It’s been a long few days,” Kei Lo admits. “Someone tried to kill the Fire Lord again.”

“Really?” she asks, turning back to the slowly-budding fire lilies she’s pruning and attempting to remain casual.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

He doesn’t seem likely to volunteer any more information on his own, so Mai pushes the conversation forward. “What happened?”

For a moment, she’s half-convinced he’s going to give her a straight answer. 

“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it,” he says eventually, scratching nervously at the back of his neck.

Years spent holding her tongue have taught Mai to read between the lines of subtlety, and the message here—while likely subconscious—is clear: if the situation is right, Kei Lo _will_ talk.

“Come on,” she says coyly, “I’ve always wondered what the palace was like.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Kei Lo replies with a smirk, not even remotely subtle about the way he preens under her interest. “Maybe I could tell you about it over dinner?”

Mai grins. Azula wanted a story about Kei Lo, and by Agni she was going to get one.

“My shift ends in a few hours. Pick me up at seven.”

* * *

The date is...tolerable, to put it mildly. The food is decent, though Mai hardly tastes it over the bitterness rising in her throat as she attempts to process the fact that while she was planting flowers, Zuko was nearly bleeding out.

“I wasn’t there,” Kei Lo explains, not even pausing to chew his meal, “but I heard it was pretty gnarly.”

 _“Pretty gnarly;”_ Agni, Mai hates boys.

“Is he okay?” she asks. (Even though she knows the answer, her concern isn’t exactly an act.)

“He’s fine,” Kei Lo replies shortly.

“You don’t sound too thrilled about that.”

Kei Lo doesn’t respond for a moment, instead shoveling another biteful of noodles into his mouth.

“Look,” he says after he finally swallows. “How much do you know about the Fire Nation colonies?”

 _Probably more than you,_ Mai stops herself from replying.

“Why do you ask?” she says instead.

“It’s just…” He shifts in his seat, glancing over his shoulders as though making sure no one is eavesdropping. “Some people aren’t exactly happy with how the impo— _erial Fire Lord’s_ been handling it.”

He stumbles to cover the slip, but Mai makes the connection easily; it is, after all, the same word her father has used since the day Zuko ascended the throne.

_Imposter._

Someone without Mai’s self-control may have snapped at the mere notion of Zuko being anything less than honorable, romantic entanglements aside. Someone who knew the scars he bore, the constant guilt and duty he shouldered, may leap to his defense.

(Mai had been that person just a year ago. She’d yelled at her father, and denounced him as she helped her mother pack their bags. She’d lost her ticket into the political world, severed any tie to Zuko that wasn’t built on friendship or forced love.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.)

“What do you mean?” she asks, leaning forward and letting her hand skim over his.

He shivers, and something in Mai hums with satisfaction.

“The people in the colonies,” he says, glancing nervously between Mai’s fingers and, she notes smugly, her lips, “they don’t want to leave. It’s our land, and he just wants to give it up! You get that, right?”

Mai nods with all the enthusiasm she can muster (without accidentally vomiting in the process).

“Good,” Kei Lo says, smiling. “Good.”

“Maybe this is a dumb question,” Mai begins, softening her voice like she’s seen Ty Lee done while wooing boys so many times before (and then immediately vanquishing that thought and all the guilt it brings), “but if you hate the guy so much, why do you work for him?”

Kei Lo, for all his lack of filter, actually seems hesitant to answer.

His reluctance all but vanishes when Mai slowly runs a thumb over his knuckle and leans in so close that their noses are nearly touching. “You can trust me.”

She feels the hot puff of his breath on her cheek before he shakily nods.

“There’s a society trying to take down the imposter,” he whispers. “I’m their eyes on the inside.”

He must take her choked silence as awe rather than an overwhelming surge of nausea, because he’s somehow bursting with even more pride as he leans back in his seat.

“Not to brag,” he says cheekily, “but I’m kind of a big deal in the movement.”

“Oh?” Mai can only hope she comes off as at least a little bit impressed (and not disgusted beyond belief).

Kei Lo grins. “Why don’t we get out of here, and I’ll tell you all about it?”

Mai nods and allows him to lead her outside, squashing the part of her that unconsciously wishes the fingers linked between hers were Ty Lee’s. She tells herself that she has a mission to focus on, that this is her chance to learn the New Ozai Society’s next move.

She tells herself the fluttering feeling deep within her stomach is nothing more than fear for the safety of her friend.

(Then Kei Lo squeezes her hand, and she can’t help but wonder if it’s such a sin to want to be wanted.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing but love for my girl mai she’s just goin thru some stuff


	10. jerkbenders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka may be a fool, but he isn’t an idiot.
> 
> or: sokka goes on an unexpectedly eventful walk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the slightly longer wait school is...something
> 
> cw for allusion to abuse & references to sex

Sokka may be a fool, but he isn’t an idiot.

It isn’t exactly a secret that Zuko is avoiding him. Subtlety has never been his boyfriend’s strong suit, ugly ponytail-days or otherwise, and his attempts at lying are transparent at best.

No, when Zuko wants to try his hand at quietly manipulating his way out of a problem, he simply disappears.

It’s a habit that’s been perpetually annoying the shit out of Sokka since the moment they first formed their uneasy truce. At the Western Air Temple, his vanishing act created a suffocating paranoia that not even Toph’s all-seeing feet could fully assuage. At Ember Island, it ruined an infuriating amount of the “alone time” that Sokka carefully pencilled into his mental schedule.

And at the palace? At the palace, Zuko is a fucking spectre. He knows every secret passage like the back of his hand (for reasons that Sokka very much cannot think about unless he can break a certain father’s stupid face), and his staff are so fiercely loyal that they’d fall on their own swords before revealing their boss’ location.

All of this boils down to the simple fact that if Zuko wants to avoid him, he’s more than capable of doing so. 

He has to admit, the guy is getting creative; rather than just slinking through the shadows and dodging any opportunities for private conversation, Zuko has now stooped low enough to clear Sokka’s meeting itinerary for the day with the vague justification that he “deserves some time off.”

(He would’ve argued that even if Zuko wanted to have secret negotiations without him, he could’ve at least been honest about it; he can’t, though, because the notice came through a message slipped under his door before he was even awake.)

So yeah, Sokka is less than thrilled at the stupid game Zuko is playing. Hell, he doesn’t even know _why_ Zuko’s trying so damn hard to get rid of him; political negotiations are no shittier than usual, and the inordinate amount of planning required for the Fire Lily Festival is nearly complete. Save the assassination attempt—which, unfortunately, isn’t exactly an uncommon ocurrence—this week has been practically a walk in the park.

 _A walk in the park._ That’s what Zuko scrawled on his stupid note after announcing his forced vacation: _“Go take a walk in the park.”_

If Sokka had any idea of Zuko’s whereabouts, he’d tell him exactly where to shove his fancy royal calligraphy.

(But he doesn’t, because Zuko is a slippery bastard, and Sokka’s heart clearly has no understanding of self-preservation since it keeps guiding him toward someone so frequently determined not to be found.)

He’s said it before, and he’ll say it again: Zuko is a stupid jerkbender. A stupid, weaselly, jerkbender whose even stupider suggestion of walking through the park has nothing to do with Sokka’s current pacing locale.

It’s just a nice day, okay? The humidity is on the more bearable end of ungodly, and Sokka’s almost 90% sure he won’t pass out from heat stroke. (If he does, the healer may actually kick his ass as she’s threatened to do the last five times his unconscious body was dropped in front of her.) How Zuko can tolerate the weather—in full Fire Lord regalia no less—is beyond him.

He’d thought it was a firebender thing at first, but the sweaty group of shirtless kids kicking a ball of flames around dangerously close to Sokka’s head attest to the fact that it is very much a _Zuko_ thing.

(And yes, it _does_ fill Sokka with an obnoxious amount of satisfaction that he happens to know exactly how to leave Zuko breathless and sweaty, even _without_ his ridiculously heavy clothes on.)

(Whether it also leaves Sokka a dripping mess because Zuko’s jacked-up body heat turns the room into a sauna is irrelevant.)

The point is, everything in the Fire Nation—from its pale inhabitants to its weird hairless wildlife—has had to learn to adapt to the sweltering sun. It’s for this exact reason that the massive furry beast curled up in the grassy area further down the path sticks out like a sore thumb, because A- it should be suffocating, and B- it looks eerily like Appa. (Meaning the logical conclusion is that Sokka is dehydrated and hallucinating, which is just great.)

“Sokka!”

Wonderful: the sky bison-shaped mirage is now calling his name. Zuko would definitely tease him about this, as if it isn’t _his_ fault Sokka is outside in the first place. What kind of boyfriend knowingly sends his doting partner who is _literally_ from the South Pole into the tropical wilderness of a volcano?

(The answer is the kind who’s too busy brooding by himself to care and therefore won’t even hear about any slightly embarrassing delusions.)

 _(Ha. In your_ face _, jerkbender.)_

He’s in the midst of turning back towards the shaded shelter of the palace for a well-deserved nap when the gravel beneath his feet begins to shift. He decidedly _does not yelp_ as what was once solid earth slides across itself like a makeshift sled, dragging one highly unbalanced Sokka down the path with it.

He stumbles off into the grass when the movement screeches to a halt, and braces himself for the concussion (and ridicule) he knows is coming as he careens downwards.

His head never hits the ground; instead, a gust of air propels his body back up, so far that he ends up falling backwards onto his ass.

“Oops,” someone chuckles awardly. “Sorry!”

Sokka can’t find it in himself to be angry, because he’d know that squeaky little voice anywhere. “Aang?!”

He feels the rush of air as Aang helps him up to stand, and he barely has a second to gather his bearings before his arms are full of one very hyperactive (and concerningly strong) Avatar.

“How are you even _taller?”_ Sokka complains. “It hasn’t even been that long!”

“Maybe you’re just getting shorter.”

“Katara!” Sokka gasps, all but dropping Aang (who lowkey deserves it after knocking him over before) in his rush to hug his sister.

“What are you guys doing here?” he asks when they break apart. “I thought the festival wasn’t until next week. Wait, shit, _is_ it next week? Did I time travel?”

“Zuko invited us to come early!” Aang explains, practically vibrating with excitement. “He said you might be homesick.”

Sokka’s sure there must be an incredibly dopey expression on his face, because Katara somehow looks both amused and touched (in her unique, younger sister way) as she sighs, “Who knew he had a heart?”

“Uh, hello?” Sokka says, waving his hand. “I did.”

Katara snorts. “You don’t count.”

“What?” Sokka throws his hands up. “Why? It’s not _my_ fault I was the first one good enough to find it.”

“Snoozles, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his _heart_ you found.”

Someone less secure in their masculinity than Sokka would deny it, but Toph really is the master of grand entrances and scaring the shit out of him.

“What the hell?” he shrieks at the earthbender’s sudden appearance, his voice pitching up so high that even Appa—whom Aang is now attempting to lead closer—looks at him in concern. Toph just laughs.

She laughs even harder when he turns red as he processes the words that she’d so rudely given him a heart attack with.

“You’re a child,” he groans, covering his face with his hands.

“Actually, I’m fourteen,” she corrects cheekily.

“A child!” Sokka repeats. “You’re a child!”

Toph continues to cackle, and Sokka seriously debates asking her to bend him into the ground to spend the rest of his days in shame.

“What’s so funny?” Aang asks as he returns, Appa’s reins in his hand.

“Nothing!” Sokka quickly defends.

“Well,” Toph says with a grin, “when two people love each other very much…”

 _“Toph,”_ Katara chides. (Sokka would be grateful if it weren’t for the giggles she isn’t even _trying_ to suppress.)

“Yeah, _Toph,”_ he echoes. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Toph raises her brow at him, and even though it’s directed a bit too far to his left, he still feels unnerved.

“Hmm, could it be the time I had to hear you two going at it on Ember Island? Or maybe that time in the Earth Kingdom? Oh, what about—“

“Okay, okay,” Sokka interrupts, valiantly pretending not to hear Katara’s horrified whisper of _“Ember Island?”_. “We get it.”

Toph smirks at his obvious discomfort. “It’s not _my_ fault I have such good hearing.”

“You shouldn’t be listening in the first place!” Sokka splutters.

“Oh, so you want me to be blind _and_ deaf?”

“It’s better than eavesdropping on me and Zuko!”

“What is this I hear about my nephew?”

Sokka wheezes, his heart—which had only just calmed from the fight-or-flight mode a certain earthbending gremlin triggered—once again threatening to hammer right out of his chest.

“Iroh!” he chokes out. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Really?” Iroh asks with a grin. “Of all the things that have changed for me in Ba Sing Se, I did not think my figure was one of them.”

“That’s a good one, Uncle!” Aang says as he all but launches himself into the man’s arms.

“Hello, young Avatar,” Iroh greets as he returns the hug. “I am glad to see you are doing well.”

Aang releases Iroh and bounds back to Katara’s side, whom Iroh greets with a bow.

“Did Zuko invite you early too?”

Iroh’s smile doesn’t falter as he shakes his head, but Sokka can’t help but notice the expression doesn’t reach his eyes.

“No, I asked him if he wanted to come with me when I saw the letter,” Toph explains.

“But how did you see—“ Sokka clamps his mouth shut at the glare Toph shoots him.

 _“Anyways,”_ she continues, “Uncle didn't know what the hell I was talking about, but then we thought, hey—if Sparky wants a surprise, why don’t we give him one too?”

Toph frowns, then, furrowing her brow. “Where is he, anyways? I can’t sense his freaky jackalope heart.”

Four pairs of eyes turn to Sokka (or, in Toph’s case, the tree next to him), who can’t do anything but shrug. “Beats me. Probably in some meeting.”

“You don’t know?”

Sokka scowls at the concern on his sister’s face (and at the way the comment eats at his already churning insides). “He doesn’t exactly tell me much.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Katara,” he bites out. “Why does he do half the shit he does?”

He jolts at the sudden brush of a warm hand on his shoulder, but relaxes when he realizes it’s just Iroh.

“I am sorry for any pain my nephew caused,” he says gently. “It seems he is troubled.”

“You could say that again,” Sokka mutters.

Iroh sighs. “I will go speak to him.”

Sokka nods, feeling some of the tension bleed out of his muscles. His shoulders sag when Iroh lets go, but the comforting heat of his palm lingers.

“I shall see you all for dinner, I assume?” Iroh asks.

“Of course,” Katara replies, any previous worry smoothing out of her expression.

“Tell Zuko we say hi!” Aang adds as Iroh turns away.

“Certainly,” he says.

He makes it a few steps towards the palace before looking back at Sokka with a strange twinkle in his eyes.

“And Ambassador Sokka? Please know you have my full support in any endeavors to help my nephew...relax.”

Sokka gapes.

“Katara?” he moans, staring brokenly at his sister. “Please drown me.”

All he gets is a snort in response before Katara takes his hand. 

“Come on,” she says, smirking in a way that Sokka resolutely refuses to acknowledge. “Let’s go take Appa to the stables, and then we’ll go hunt down your stupid boyfriend.”

Sokka can only nod and steadfastly pretend he doesn’t hear the not-at-all subtle snickers as she tugs him towards the saddle.


	11. flares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you think being Fire Lord is easy?”
> 
> Father’s voice is slimy, oozing with disdain like the chilly mildew creeping up the prison’s metal walls.
> 
> or: zuko can’t catch a break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to the regularly scheduled angst lol
> 
> cw for references to sex & abuse

_“Do you think being Fire Lord is easy?”_

_Father’s voice is slimy, oozing with disdain like the chilly mildew creeping up the prison’s metal walls._

_Zuko doesn’t even know how he ended up here, standing outside the cell of the man who ruined him. There’s something on the tip of his tongue, an accusation in the sharp letters spelling out “mother.”_

_“The throne comes with many pressures, and those pressures will change you! But if you can stand the heat—“_

_(heat, fire, burning agony across his cheek and down his back)_

_“—you’ll become something more.”_

Something more. _Isn’t that what Zuko’s always wanted to be in his father’s eyes? Something other than the second choice, other than just lucky to be born?_

_“Of all the people in the world, I have the wisdom you need, the wisdom of experience!”_

_(“Experience in what?” Zuko wants to bite back. “Murder? Destruction?”_

_But he can’t, because his mouth won’t move and Father is looming over him and sneering and Zuko is so, so small.)_

_“Be honest with yourself, Zuko—“_

_(Another day, another time: “Rise and fight, Prince Zuko!”)_

_“—do you really believe you can handle it all on your own?”_

_The iron bars melt like candles, like_ flesh, _until nothing stands between them. Zuko tries to stand tall, to face his father head-on as he did on the day of the eclipse, but his legs buckle against his will and his knees hit the ground with the finality of a killing blow._

_Pleas for mercy rise unbidden in his throat, acidic vomit climbing up his esophagus no matter how hard he tries to swallow it down. He should know better than to beg by now, just as he should know that kindness is not a word in his father’s vocabulary._

_He is cowering on the cold prison ground, shaking under Father’s shadow cast by the bright lights of the Agni Kai arena. He is both inside and out of his body, trapped in stillness overlaid with far too many memories._

_(A part of him remembers how this conversation ended all those months ago—how he returned to his throne and left his father in his cell to rot without looking back.)_

(But even that isn’t true, is it?)

 _“You’ll be back, and I’ll be here waiting for you,_ son.”

_Ozai grins, exposing the bloody teeth of a catgator ready to pounce, digging its claws into him over and over— “Son.”_

_The gash tearing through his torso deepens. “Son.”_

_The words overlap, a cacophony of sneers giving way to one clear voice:_

_“Please, my son. Listen to me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you.”_

_Is that his mother speaking? Is it Father? He feels lost, overwhelmed in a current of shifting faces and burning pain._

_There’s pressure on his shoulder, holding him still as a fistful of flames comes nearer. He squints and tries to identify the source, but the shadowy face warps in and out of focus. He catches a glimpse of a goatee, a curtain of soft brown hair, a close-cut wolf tail._

“Nephew.”

 _Uncle, it’s_ Uncle _wielding the fire. He can see it now, the smirk unfolding across his wrinkled cheeks. His gold eyes hold a foreign chill, the buildup of latent rage always simmering just below the surface._

“Nephew!”

Zuko comes to with a start, stumbling to his feet and reflexively summoning a flame to his hand before realizing…“Uncle?”

He lets the fire fizzle out in a daze, still trying to orient himself. Then Uncle’s arms wrap around him, solid and _real,_ and he finds he doesn’t care.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, words muffled by the frizzy mass of hair his face is squished against.

Uncle chuckles; the sound vibrates through his entire body and shakes Zuko’s along with it. “Must I have a reason to visit my favorite nephew?”

Zuko snorts. “I’m your _only_ nephew.”

“Maybe so,” Uncle admits, loosening his embrace to regard Zuko with a glance that quickly morphs from jovial to concerned. “You look tired.”

He reaches his hand out as though to caress his face—not the scarred side, _never_ the scarred side—but Zuko ducks away before it can make contact. 

(He _knows_ Uncle means no harm, but he can’t help but see the echo of dreamlike flames. After all, hadn’t he thought the same thing when his father cupped his cheek all those years ago?)

“I’m fine,” he says shortly, slipping around Uncle and towards the door.

“Your friends do not seem to think so.”

“Yeah?” Zuko snaps, spinning on his heel. “And what the hell do _they_ know?”

“Not much, I am afraid,” Uncle replies.

“Did you ever think maybe that’s for a _reason?”_ he seethes.

Uncle sighs, and the sound transports Zuko back to long nights raging at sea, pushing away the only person who refused to give up on him.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “You’re right, I- I haven’t been sleeping. There’s just—“ 

He stops with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose and attempting to stave off the migraine he can feel steadily building behind his eyes. “There’s just so much to do.”

“Take a break, Nephew. You deserve it.”

Zuko doesn't flinch this time when Uncle rests a gentle hand on his shoulder; instead, he deflates, weighed down by the bone-deep exhaustion he’s been staving off for far too long.

“Go see your friends,” Uncle urges. “I will take care of things here.”

Zuko shakes his head. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“I volunteered, did I not?”

Zuko sighs, unable to say ‘no’ to the beseeching look on Uncle’s face. _“Fine.”_

“Fantastic,” Uncle says, grinning and clapping his hands together. “Now, if my estimations are correct, they should be here right about—“

_“Zuko!”_

Aang gives no warning before barreling directly into him, a tangle of gangly limbs and high-pitched laughter.

“Oh, uh, hey guys,” he says as he awkwardly pats Aang’s back until he releases him. “Glad you made it.”

Katara gives him a critical once-over after Aang returns to her side. “You were right, Sokka,” she mutters none too subtly. “He _does_ look like crap.”

“Hey!” Zuko and Sokka protest at the same time.

“It’s true,” Toph says. “Even _I_ can tell, and I’m blind!”

She grins as she speaks, waving her hand in front of her milky eyes for emphasis.

“Whatever,” Zuko mutters.

“I have an idea,” Uncle says. “Why don’t you all go catch up over some tea? I brought my newest blend.”

He removes a metal tin from the pocket of his robes, which Aang snatches excitedly. “Thanks, Uncle!” he calls as he all but flies out the door. “Last one to the tea room’s a rotten pentapus egg!”

Katara and Toph roll their eyes as they follow him, leaving Zuko and Sokka alone with Uncle.

“Go, now,” he says, squeezing Zuko’s shoulder. “Have some fun.”

“Yeah,” Sokka echoes. “Let’s go!”

He grabs Zuko’s hand and tugs him away from Uncle, who waves them away with an all-too-knowing grin. They’re a good distance behind the rest of their friends, and Sokka takes the opportunity to lead Zuko to one of the small alcoves in the hallway.

“Did you really invite them for me?” he asks softly.

Zuko nods, blushing and looking away. “There won’t be much free time at the festival, and I just wanted to thank you for, uh, sticking around. I know I haven’t exactly been...easy to be around recently.”

He can’t bring himself to meet Sokka’s gaze, and since he isn’t answering— _why isn’t he answering?_ —he continues to ramble in a last-ditch effort to escape the awkward silence.

“I’m sorry. This doesn’t even begin to make up for my behavior, and I just, uh...Well, I understand if you want to leave with them later, because—“

“Zuko,” Sokka interrupts. His voice is hard, but the fingers that tilt his head upwards are soothingly soft. “Thank you.”

“Oh, uh,” Zuko says, scratching at the back of his neck and glancing between the sincerity in Sokka’s eyes and the shoes poking out from beneath his robe. “You’re welcome?”

Sokka sighs, shaking his head in exasperation before leaning in for a quick kiss. “Thank you,” he repeats, even more firmly this time. “Now let’s go find our friends.”

* * *

 _“Finally,”_ Toph groans as they enter the room. “I thought you were gonna leave me to third-wheel forever!”

Sokka sticks his tongue out. “That’s what you get for embarrassing me in front of fucking _Iroh_ earlier.”

“Damn,” Toph says, a shit-eating grin already spreading across her face. “You kiss Sparky with that mouth?”

“As a matter of fact,” Sokka retorts, “I do. And I’m _great_ at it!”

“Lie.”

“It’s not a lie!” He turns to Zuko, eyes wide. “Babe, tell her it’s not a lie.”

“It’s not,” Zuko agrees, incredibly thankful that Toph can’t see the fierce blush crawling across his face.

“Ugh,” Katara groans. “Can we _please_ stop talking about my brother’s relationship right now?”

“Sure,” Toph replies smugly. “Why don’t we talk about you and Twinkle-Toes?”

Katara smacks her hand against her forehead.

“Hey, that’s my thing!” Sokka whines.

Zuko raises his brow. “How can face-palming be ‘your thing’?”

“Zuko,” Katara says, a conspiratory smirk spreading across her face. “Have we ever told you about the secret tunnel to Omashu?”

* * *

_“Two lovers,”_ Sokka sings to himself as he strolls through the servant’s passage, _“divided from one another.”_

He gives one guard a mock salute as he passes, feeling lighter than he has in months. He hadn’t realized until now how much he’d missed the rest of Team Avatar. (Or are they the Gaang? He’s still working on the name.)

_“A war divides their people…”_

He can already imagine the annoyed grumbling that Zuko will undoubtedly berate him with once he hears him humming the song that, let it be known, _Katara_ planted in his head.

_“And a mountain divides them apart…”_

He squeezes past a cluster of palace staff as he continues down the hall, the group too used to his presence to spare him a second thought.

_“They built a path to be together.”_

(Huh. Who knew the hippies’ song would be so weirdly relatable?)

He exits the secret tunnel (and wow, those guitar chords are _never_ leaving his head) outside Zuko’s room, per his super sexy request. The lone guard— _weird—_ looks up at his arrival.

“Ambassador Sokka,” she greets, dipping into a short bow.

“Hey, Lyru. I’m here to, uh, you know…”

Will Sokka ever get over the sheer bizarreness of his boyfriend’s staff knowing about his sex life? No, he most definitely will not. (Though he won’t deny the small twinge of pride that comes from knowing that _other_ people know he’s the only one with the privilege of sleeping with their almighty ruler.)

“You’re welcome to go in, but the Fire Lord is not yet here.”

Sokka frowns. “Do you know where he is?”

“I believe he is in his private office finishing some work.”

_Of course he is._

“Thanks,” he replies. “I’ll try to drag him back.”

Lyru snorts. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, waving her off.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he heads back down the hall, already trying to brainstorm just what tactic would be most likely to cajole Zuko to bed. He doesn’t exactly respond well to direct orders or attempts at (incredibly solid) logic. (He can already hear Zuko’s arguments about how he can somehow function without sleep.)

He’s still in the process of debating the efficacy of luring Zuko back with the beginnings of a handjob (and, more importantly, whether or not he can get away with it) when he reaches the office. The door is closed, and Sokka’s hand is poised to knock when he hears Iroh’s voice filter out into the hall.

“—ridiculous, Nephew!”

“I _told_ you,” he hears Zuko snap. “I have it all under control!”

“You call this under control?” Iroh asks incredulously. “You’ll kill yourself at this rate!”

“I’m _fine!”_ Zuko snarls.

“You are not, and I won’t let you do this to yourself!”

“What are you, my father?”

Sokka winces at Iroh’s sharp inhale. “Nephew…”

“What? _I’m_ trying to run a fucking country. What are _you_ doing?”

“I am attempting to avoid another war!” There’s a loud thump, like Iroh has slammed his fist against the table.

He hears Zuko’s breath catch in his throat, the uneven creak of floorboards beneath unsteady feet. (It isn’t hard for Sokka’s brain to conjure the familiar image of Zuko’s flinch.)

The beginnings of an apology spill out of Iroh’s lips, but Zuko talks over him.

“I guess you’re more like him than I thought,” he says darkly.

“Nephew, please understand: I am just trying to do what’s best for you. He is not.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“No. I know you, and I know him, even better than you do.”

“Get out.” Zuko’s voice is low, dangerous.

“Zuko, please—“

_“Get out!”_

Silence falls over the room, and for a moment, all Sokka can hear is ragged breathing over the confused ringing in his ears.

“As you wish,” Iroh says softly after a moment.

Sokka takes that as his cue to leave and hide somewhere that _doesn’t_ incriminate him for eavesdropping. He makes it to cover just as Iroh exits, his head hung low. Behind him, just as the door swings shut, Sokka catches a glimpse of bright orange flames.

Sokka swallows. A part of him wants to barge in and ask Zuko what the fuck he was talking about and demand he apologizes to Iroh. Another part of him just wants to hug his boyfriend and never let go. The third part of him—the part that remembers months of being on the receiving end of Zuko’s fire, that remembers the painful burn of embers showering his skin in the unforgiving darkness of the forest—screams at him to put as much distance between himself and the ever-growing heat.

He sighs, looks away, and goes to find Katara.


	12. forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka doesn’t come to Zuko’s room that night.
> 
> It’s finally—totally, completely fine. Seriously. he is not worked up about it, he’s not!
> 
> or: the aftermath of sokka’s eavesdropping session

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for referenced abuse

Sokka doesn’t come to Zuko’s room that night.

It’s finally—totally, completely fine. Seriously. he is _not_ worked up about it, he’s not! Did he sleep more than a few nightmare-filled hours? No. But that’s never stopped him before, and he’ll be damned if it stops him now.

He’s not really mad, per se. Sokka is his own person, with his own whims and decision-making skills; so if he didn’t want to see Zuko, he was well within his right to do so.

(He tells himself this, over and over again, because the only other option is spiraling and retracing every mistake he’s ever made—and Agni, there have been so fucking many—and wondering which one of his multitude of screw-ups drove Sokka away this time.

 _This time,_ because there have been so many others. _This time,_ because all he knows how to do is push people away under the guise of selflessness.)

He’s tired, and insecure, and simultaneously trapped inside his unforgiving brain yet hovering outside his body, so it’s really not his fault that he barrels straight into Katara and jumps right out of his skin.

“Katara,” he wheezes, bringing a hand up to his pounding heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Maybe you should look where you’re going,” she replies coolly, and hell, it’s been a hot fucking minute since she’s skewered him with a glare that intense and he _really_ hasn’t missed it.

“Sorry,” he says awkwardly, tugging at his collar to relieve the sudden heat building up beneath it. “I was just, uh, thinking.”

Katara crosses her arms, and Zuko gulps. “Was it about my brother?”

“I, um, don’t know how to answer that?” His voice pitches up at the end; he has yet to figure out just how to weather Katara’s icy fury.

“He came to see me last night.”

Oh. _Oh._ So Sokka _wasn’t_ upset, or uninterested in Zuko and/or the sex he was offering; he just wanted to see his sister.

“That’s...nice,” he says, wincing at the stiltedness of his words.

“No, Zuko,” she retorts. “It wasn’t.”

Zuko frowns. “I don’t understand.”

Katara sighs, exasperated at something that, for the life of him, Zuko can’t seem to figure out.

“He overheard you arguing with Iroh.”

Zuko stiffens, subconsciously taking a small step back. “What?”

“He was looking for you,” she explains, as if that somehow cushions the blow of the massive bomb she just dropped at his feet.

“We were just discussing politics,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back in the hopes that the clenching of his fists goes unnoticed.

(From the way Katara’s expression softens into one of concern, he doubts his subtlety worked out.)

“He said you were yelling.”

Zuko shakes his head so quickly that he nearly gives himself whiplash. “No, he must have misremembered.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m not lying!” he snaps.

He has no doubt that the Katara of a few years ago would have met his outburst with a water-whip to the face, and he thinks he might prefer it to the calculating look she’s fixing him with now. He feels horribly exposed under her gaze, like she’s picking him apart piece by piece.

(He doesn’t know what she’ll uncover once she pulls aside the achy muscles and weary bones, and he doesn’t think he wants to find out.)

“He’s worried about you,” she says after a moment. _“I’m_ worried about you.”

“Why?”

Katara’s eyes widen, and Zuko has never regretted speaking more in his life. (At least he’d known what to expect, somewhere deep in the recesses of his trauma-ridden brain, when he’d spoken out in that Agni-forsaken war meeting.)

“We’re your friends.”

Zuko’s throat feels dry all of a sudden, and he absently wonders if Katara has learned to waterbend using nothing but the raw sincerity in her eyes.

“I don’t—“ he pauses, swallows, tries again, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Talk to us,” she pleads. “Even if it’s just Sokka. Just- just don’t shut us out.”

Zuko closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe. “Okay,” he agrees on an exhale. “I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” Katara says, smiling and opening her arms.

(The sincerity of it all—the unspoken placement of the metaphorical ball of physical contact in Zuko’s court—makes him want to cry.)

Katara squeezes him once he accepts her embrace, and Zuko lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Let me make it up to you.”

Katara snorts as she steps back. “What? Are we going on another life-changing field trip?”

“Something like that.”

Katara raises her brows, her hands falling to rest on her hips.

“Wait here while I go talk to Uncle. I have a plan.”

“Oh yeah, because your plans _always_ turn out so well,” she says drily.

Zuko flushes and looks away. “Just- just give me a few minutes, okay?”

“La help me,” Katara mutters as he heads towards Uncle’s room. “You’re becoming my brother.”

* * *

The worst days at the store, Mai thinks, are when she’s alone with her aunt. The woman clearly has no understanding of the value of peace and quiet, and as such incessantly chatters about topics she seemingly pulls out of thin air.

Her mother, at least, is comfortable enough not to bother with small talk, and even hypersocial customers come with the added distraction of actual work.

Her aunt’s topic of choice today, it seems, is fashion, a subject in which Mura herself is horribly uneducated. (Some may call her clashing ensembles of reds and greens daring, but Mai isn’t demure enough to pretend it _isn’t_ an eyesore.)

“Is that a new dress?” she asks as she carefully transfers the fire lilies next to Mai.

“No.”

“Oh,” her aunt says thoughtfully, wholly unfazed by what Mai thinks is a blatantly obvious lack of interest. “I guess I haven’t seen you wear it before.”

Anyone even slightly style-focused would know that the deep maroon of Mai’s high-collared ensemble classifies it firmly as _winter,_ thus inevitably invoking the question of why Mai is covering up so much of her skin in the first place.

(The answer, which her aunt would have to pry from her cold, dead body, started with Kei and ended with Lo.)

Mai shrugs, feigning nonchalance as she repacks the soil around the flowers they’re preparing for transfer. “Maybe I just felt like changing it up.”

“Hmm,” her aunt hums, likely searching for a way to continue perpetuating their one-sided conversation.

(Mai is used to nodding along and playing the perfect, docile young lady, but that doesn’t make it any less miserable.)

The tinkle of the bell over the door saves her from having to deal with another round of uncomfortable chit-chat, and while dealing with customers isn’t exactly enjoyable, it’s at least a break from biting her tongue.

“Welcome to Mura’s Flower Shop,” her aunt chirps. “How can I help—“

Her aunt’s greeting—the one that Mai steadfastly refuses to say—cuts off with a gasp; it’s a bizarre deviation from her usual nauseating extroversion, one that only grows weirder when she all but falls down onto her knees.

“Your Highness.”

Huh. And here Mai was thinking her day would be uneventful.

“Uh…you can rise?” 

How Zuko still manages to sound so unsure of himself while running an entire nation is beyond her; then again, this _is_ the same guy who thought it was a good idea to break up with her in a _letter_ , so she guesses it adds up.

“How may I be of service, my Lord?” Mura asks.

“We wanted to check on the progress of the fire lilies, and, um, also get some flowers.”

 _We?_ Mai frowns until she spots the Water Tribe girl behind Zuko. (The frown doesn’t go away, but at least now it has a purpose.)

Mura appears on the verge of having an aneurysm at the mere idea of Zuko’s presence, so Mai steps around her. “Don’t you have servants to do this for you?”

 _“Mai,”_ her aunt chastises, as though Zuko is somehow a threat (or, worse, above her).

“It’s alright,” Zuko assures.

That’s apparently the last of his rehearsed lines, because the room lulls into a horrifically uncomfortable silence. Mai remains quiet, because she enjoys watching Zuko squirm; her aunt, unfortunately, shares no such conviction.

“The fire lilies are over here,” she says, gesturing to the sectioned-off boxes of bright red blooms. “We’ve already sent shipments to the festival grounds, but these need a few more days before they’re ready to travel.”

Zuko nods, though Mai can tell he isn’t exactly invested in the conversation. The waterbender doesn’t even bother coming over, which Mai for some reason finds incredibly irksome.

“What, are my aunt’s flowers not worth your time, Water Tribe?”

The girl looks up at the accusation, her blue eyes eerily similar to those of her brother. Mai forces down the phantom chill of ice creeping over her body, the involuntary shiver wrought by months of Sokka’s unyielding glare.

(At this point, Mai doesn’t even know which sibling annoys her more.)

“My name is Katara,” the waterbender corrects. “And fire lilies and I have a... complicated history.”

Mai doesn’t have the time nor the desire to unpack that horribly cryptic statement, so she simply ignores it.

“I don’t know what your problem is with me,” Katara continues, “but can’t we at least _pretend_ to get along?”

“Sure,” Mai replies shortly. “Whatever.”

She expects Zuko to jump in and defend Katara, just as he always does whenever she so much as blinks at Sokka the wrong way, but he doesn’t even acknowledge them.

Katara must notice this, because she says, “We’re on his left,” as though that clarifies anything.

Mai hates the weird sincerity—no, the _pity_ —on Katara’s face, so when she asks her to elaborate, she all but snarls it out.

The waterbender bites her lip as she glances between Mai and Zuko, the latter of whom seems wholly focused on whatever small talk Mura is torturing him with.

“He doesn’t like people to know, but he seems to trust you, so…”

Mai groans. “Just spit it out already, would you?”

Katara glowers, but ultimately gives in. “He’s deaf in that ear.”

This time, Mai’s question of “what?” is much more subdued.

“His, you know…” Katara gestures to the left side of her face.

She hadn’t really thought about it—or, rather, hadn’t _let_ herself think about it—but a burn that severe surely came with damage beyond cosmetic.

(She wasn’t there on the day of the Agni Kai, but her father and Azula had no qualms about filling in the gory details.

It still hadn’t prepared her for the sight of the scar, three long years later.)

“How do you know that?” _How do I not?_

“I’ve healed him plenty of times before,” Katara says with a shrug, as though that explains why she knows more about Zuko than one of his oldest friends.

_(What else am I missing?)_

“Oh,” is all she can manage in response.

Katara tilts her head to the side like she’s reasoning something out; like Mai is some sort of puzzle to be solved.

“You really do love him.”

Mai flinches. “He’s my friend.”

“No, you loved him as something more than that.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does!”

Mai scoffs at the sheer conviction in Katara’s voice. “Your brother doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Sokka can be...overprotective,” Katara says carefully.

“I’ll say,” Mai mutters.

Katara sighs. “Look, I’ll try talking to him, okay?”

“You’d do that for me?”

“You clearly care about Zuko, and Agni knows that man needs all the help he can get.”

Mai feels her lips quirk up into a small smile. _Weird._

“Thanks,” she replies. (For once, she isn’t being sarcastic.) “So, you’re looking for flowers?”

Katara nods. “Zuko thought we could practice making crowns for the festival.”

Crowns, like the ones tucked in the corners of Mai’s room, endless tries at perfection bound tightly to the memory of sunflowers and bright laughter.

(She knows, now, that giving Ty Lee this token of affection is impossible, because she needs to keep an eye on Kei Lo and maintain a low profile.)

(Why does she feel like she’s cheating each time Kei Lo’s lips meet hers?)

(Why does a part of her not want to stop?)

“Shit,” she curses; she remembers, now, remembers that she’s supposed to meet “...Kei Lo.”

“Who?”

Mai shakes her head; there’s no time to explain, not when he could be here any minute for their lunch date. No, she needs to intercept him in the street before he finds out that she knows the Fire Lord far better than she’s letting on. “I have to go.”

She quickly unties her apron and calls out to her aunt that she’s taking her break early. Zuko turns around when Mura does, and the confusion and concern in his expression almost propels her to spill her master plan.

(Almost.)

But Zuko is a notoriously awful liar, and if he overreacts, Mai will lose her in. She just has to wait until she has more information, and then she can drop the whole charade.

(That’s what she wants to do, right? Completely remove Kei Lo from her life?)

(She forces herself to ignore how unsure she sounds, even in the privacy of her own mind.)

* * *

Zuko watches the door slam shut behind Mai with an overwhelming sense of confusion. “That was weird, right?”

Katara nods. “Very.”

They stand in near silence for another moment, the quiet only interrupted by the fading echoes of the bells announcing Mai’s exit.

“So, should we get back to shopping?” she eventually asks.

“Yeah. Flowers are, uh, good.”

Katara rolls her eyes. “Come on,” she says, tugging him away from Mura. “I’ll show you Sokka’s favorites.”

She pauses halfway across the shop, leaving Zuko to all but slam into her back. “Wait, you _are_ paying, right?”


	13. flower crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are these, Zuzu?” she’d asked, once, seated in the palace garden beside him.
> 
> “They’re called fire lilies.”
> 
> or: flower crowns & feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have some fluff!

Azula has not received a letter in over a year.

She’d be personally offended, if not for the fact that outsiders are expressly forbidden from contacting residents at the ranch. 

(Who is she kidding? Of _course_ she’s still offended.)

Some of the healers recommend drafting messages in the leather-bound journal she’s forced to carry around, spilling her thoughts and secrets and apologies; she reminds them, each time, that penning a letter that will never be sent is a gross misuse of her valuable time.

(Admittedly, spending hours basking in the sun and tending livestock isn’t exactly important, but it’s still better than wasting a good piece of parchment on what is ultimately self-sabotage.)

So, all things considered, she is understandably confused when a healer approaches her in the courtyard with the news that she’s received mail.

“Is that even legal?” Ty Lao asks, glancing up from the scroll she’d been reading beside Azula.

Azula elbows her. “Do _not_ ruin this for me.”

Ty Lao simply rolls her eyes—jealous, no doubt. Azula would tease her if it weren’t for the understanding now dawning on her:

Of the select group of people who may deem her important enough to warrant a letter, there’s only one person powerful enough to break the rules so blatantly.

“Don’t worry,” she says to Ty Lao. “I’ll tell you about all of Zuzu’s silly little secrets when I get back.”

“You’d better,” Ty Lao grumbles; she sounds upset, but Azula easily catches her small smile.

(She turns away before Ty Lao notices she’s smiling, too.)

She follows the healer to the hawkery with a strange bundle of tension in her gut. It could be nerves, or maybe she’s come down with some sort of illness. (No, she’s definitely under the weather, because why the hell would she be worried?)

They stop outside the grated door, the healer opening it for her and gesturing her inside. Azula wrinkles her nose; the room reeks, and she is once again reminded of what she tends the ostrich-horses so diligently to avoid.

She spots the facility’s official messenger hawk resting on one of the wooden perches, its beak tucked under its wing. It’s not bad, as far as hawks go; but it miserably pales in comparison to the other bird now roosting in the enclosure.

This hawk’s plumage is a vibrant shade of red, accentuating the pure gold of its eyes and the dark feathers of its manicured brows. The shimmery black ribbon affixing a now-empty scroll compartment bears the royal insignia.

“I see you’ve been reading my mail,” she says, nodding to the obvious lack of paper in the carrying compartment.

“It’s standard policy, ma’am.”

Azula sighs. “You lot are quite nosy, you know that?”

The healer simply shrugs. “Aijan should be here soon with your letter.”

“My own personal meeting with our dear director?” Azula says, making it incredibly obvious that her excitement is anything but sincere. “Lucky me.”

The healer mutters something about not being paid enough, and Azula smirks; some of the staff are just so _easy_ to irritate.

Aijan enters before she has the chance to make another snide comment. He clutches a scroll hard enough to wrinkle, the jagged edges of its torn-apart seal like blood in his fist.

“I presume that's for me?” she asks, nodding to the letter.

Aijan sighs and begrudgingly hands it over. “You know, you should be grateful we’re making this exception for you.”

“You should tell that to my brother,” Azula replies. “I’m sure the Fire Lord would _love_ to hear it.”

She grins at the obvious discomfort on his face, an expression that only widens at the way his hand jerks back to his side the second she takes the letter.

Unlike the majority of the communal library selection, this parchment is not yellowing and crinkly; instead, the material is smooth under her fingertips, and the characters inked inside are a deep obsidian that only comes from fresh ink.

She can feel the eyes of the room’s other inhabitants boring into her back, and she resists the urge to snap at them (at least, until after she finishes reading).

 _“Dear Azula,”_ the letter begins.

_“I have thought a lot about what happened the last time we spoke, and I apologize for any undue suffering I caused.”_

(Azula snorts; the sheer difference in eloquence between her brother’s writing and the word vomit that he pretends is conversation is honestly laughable.)

_“I also made this for you, like old times. I’m not sure if you even remember, but it was your favorite, and...”_

(The ink is slightly smudged here, words not meant for Azula’s eyes. Was the redaction Zuko’s doing, or divine intervention masquerading as a simple mistake?)

_“I understand if you need space, but I am here if you so choose. This hawk is at your disposal if you wish to reply.”_

(He doesn’t write out those three words, but Azula reads them loud and clear in the empty spaces and gentle brushstrokes of his signature.)

“What did he make for me?”

Aijan doesn’t bother asking Azula to clarify; instead, once her eyes lock onto his, he wordlessly hands her...a flower crown?

Azula frowns, slipping the letter into her pocket so that her hands are free to explore the soft ring of blooms. The braided pattern of the stems is instinctually familiar, red petals spelling out “home.”

_“What are these, Zuzu?” she’d asked, once, seated in the palace garden beside him._

_She was barely five years old, young and curious in that soft, liminal space of early childhood._

_“They’re called fire lilies,” Zuko explained._

_In just a few years’ time, Azula would frown at the mere notion of Zuko knowing more than her, regardless whether the assessment was accurate or not._

_“I’ve never seen them before.”_

_“That’s ‘cause they’re per…” Zuko wrinkled his nose as he wracked his brain for the word, “per...nenials?”_

_“What’s that?”_

_Zuko shrugged, and Azula huffed; her brother’s frequent inability to answer her questions was horribly annoying._

_(It was no matter, though; she’d just sneak into the palace library later and find out for herself.)_

_(She_ was _the strongest reader in her class, after all.)_

_“So what’s the point of them?”_

_Zuko looked at her like she’d asked the color of the sky (which was hilarious, considering he knew_ far _less than her about most things)._

_“They’re flowers,” he replied. “They don’t need a point.”_

_“Then why are people wearing them on their heads?”_

_“Oh!” Zuko’s face lit up as he remembered. “Mother says they’re supposed to show people you love them.”_

_“Wow,” Azula said, leaning in closer towards the lilies._ _“I want to make them!”_

_Azula reached forward to pluck a few from the ornate pot—one of the many strewn about the courtyard—but Zuko yanked her arm back._

_He let go with a yelp when she summoned a small flame to her palm. “Ow! What was that for?”_

_“I want to make the crowns, Zuzu,” she said petulantly._

_Zuko glanced around nervously. “I don’t think we’re supposed to touch them.”_

_“Come on,” she whined. “We’ll only take a few. They won’t notice!”_

_“Fine,” Zuko sighed after a moment. “But we have to be careful!”_

_Azula just scoffed and pulled Zuko up to his feet beside her. “Let’s go, slowpoke.”_

_The crowns they made that day were crooked and awkward, golden hairpieces traded for secret loops of scarlet flowers in matching black hair._

_The weaving improved as they grew, crowns tightening as their creators drifted further apart. Blood-red blooms coalesced in the cracks of their relationship until it fell apart completely, wilting and decaying into dust and dried petals._

The fire lilies, like so many other things, became confined to the blur of concrete memories and reconstructed daydreams that plagued Zuko during his years at sea.

Frankly, he’s surprised that his scarred-over fingers still know the right patterns, the little loops and notches and patterns to combine so many tiny parts into a whole.

(Of all the childhood habits forever ingrained in Zuko’s muscle memory, he thinks this may be one of the few that doesn’t dredge up a bout of nausea along with it.)

The crown in his trembling hands is not made of the scarlet that perpetually stains his bloody nation, but rather of the white as pale as the sand beneath his feet. It’s both familiar and new, tentative and all-consuming like his whirlwind emotions towards the very man he’s giving it to.

“They’re traditionally made with fire lilies,” Zuko explains as he all but thrusts the crown into Sokka’s hands, “but, uh, Katara said these were your favorite.”

Sokka’s eyes widen as he carefully examines the ring of moon flowers, a piercing blue somehow even more beautiful than the sea lapping at the shore behind them. He blushes at the raw wonder on Sokka’s face, floundering under the absurd rush of affection threatening to drown him.

“Aww,” Sokka coos with a grin. “You asked my sister for relationship advice?”

“Shut up,” Zuko mumbles, his cheeks growing even warmer.

(From the way Sokka smirks, it’s entirely possible that Zuko’s embarrassment is literally steaming off of him.)

“Can I…?” Zuko asks, tentatively grasping the edge of the flower crown (and focusing far too much energy on _not_ setting it on fire when his fingers brush Sokka’s).

Sokka nods and allows Zuko to ease it out of his hands and, ever so gently, place it on his head.

“Well? How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” Zuko blurts before he can stop himself.

(Instinct screams at him to apologize and deny it, but the mushy warmth in his chest and the halo of pale petals painting Sokka something downright _angelic_ say otherwise.)

A soft smile spreads over Sokka’s features, and not even the presence of the world’s most powerful (and obnoxious) children wading in the nearby water can stop him from pulling his boyfriend in for a kiss.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Zuko barely has time to deflect the massive hunk of sand hurtling towards his head, stumbling backwards in the process. (He has to give it to Toph—she’s nothing if not predictable.)

“Hey!” Sokka yelps. “I thought you couldn’t see in the sand!”

“I can’t,” Toph says with a grin. “But Twinkletoes can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“What?” Aang replies, shrugging sheepishly. “I think it’s sweet.”

He’s sporting his own flower crown which, considering Katara has never made one before, is incredibly impressive. (He’s pretty sure a fair amount of waterbending was involved—seriously, there’s _no way_ a beginner could braid something so perfectly—but it’s extraordinary nonetheless.)

Much like Zuko, she’d elected not to use fire lilies. It’s odd, considering she and Aang are very much in mushy gushy love, and there’s _definitely_ a story there; unfortunately for his curiosity, he’d prefer _not_ being drowned today, thank you very much. (Plus, the peonies she’d chosen were gorgeous in their own right, and the smile she’d given him when he said as much made the whole endeavor more than worth it.)

“I think it’s gross,” Toph shoots back, aiming a pointed look at Aang and missing by quite a few feet.

(Zuko, once again, keeps his mouth shut, because being buried alive is 100% not on his to-do list.)

Aang has no such self-preservation instinct and sends a playful wave in her direction. Toph responds by raising the sand beneath her feet with enough force to create a tsunami which, if it weren’t for the fact that this was a private section of Ember Island, would drown more than a few beachgoers.

“Think we should get in on this?” Sokka asks, raising his eyebrows in challenge.

“Uh…” The all-out bending war now occuring in the surf is far from inviting, but when Sokka links their hands together and drags him away from the safety of dry land, any protest dies in his throat.

(Maybe Uncle was right about the whole “needing a break” thing.)

Zuko is thoroughly soaked by the time he and Sokka trudge back onto the shore, and he steams himself dry as he slowly sits down in the sand. He can feel the sun stoking his chi as he basks in it, replenishing the embarrassing amount of energy he expended fending off three of the most powerful benders in the world (not to mention one over-enthusiastic boyfriend who seemingly lived to tease him).

Sokka has enough common sense not to ask Zuko to dry him off, considering the _very_ compromising position it would put them in, but he has no qualms letting Zuko know just how annoyed he is about it.

“So yeah,” he says, inhaling for the first time in what feels like literal minutes. “You and your stupid jerkbending can shove it.”

“Make me,” Zuko replies cheekily, relishing in the flush it brings to Sokka’s cheeks.

“I can hear you!” Toph shouts from the water. “And if I have to hear any more, I’ll come out there and kick your ass!”

Zuko gulps, his face growing hot as Sokka muffles a laugh beside him; strangely, despite his neverending shame, he feels more content than he has in a long time.

Of course, such a peace can never last.

“My Lord,” a servant says, breathless as she treks across the sand towards him. “I have news from the palace.”

Zuko inhales deeply in an attempt to push back the panic mounting inside him. “What’s wrong?”

“He did not provide details, but Prince Iroh requests your presence at once.”

“Of course he does,” Zuko mutters, allowing himself a moment of good old-fashioned anger before schooling his expression. “Thank you for the message.”

“My pleasure.” The servant dips into a quick bow before retreating, leaving Zuko to pinch between his eyebrows in an attempt to assuage the headache that is undoubtedly coming on.

“Back to Caldera?” Sokka asks with a degree of such raw concern that Zuko feels guilty to be on the recieving end of.

“Yeah,” Zuko replies, swallowing thickly.

Sokka clasps a hand on Zuko’s knee, squeezing it comfortingly before standing. “I guess I’ll go round up the children.”

He bends over until he manages to crack his back, and spends a minute rolling his shoulders before heading back towards the waves. Zuko, thrumming with a sudden, suffocating anxiety, heads towards the shade that Appa has claimed as his resting place.

He rubs his fingers through the bison’s hair in an attempt to distract himself from the fact that Uncle’s in trouble.

 _It’ll be fine,_ he tells himself as he climbs onto Appa’s saddle alongside his friends.

 _(It’ll be fine,_ his brain repeats, _because I don’t know what I’d do if it isn’t.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, using the fire nation name generator every five seconds? it’s more likely than you think
> 
> also if you’re able to vote in this upcoming election, PLEASE do so. it’s super important, especially this year


	14. power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko is out of breath when he crosses the threshold of what was once the throne room, having sprinted through the palace halls the second Appa’s massive, airbending tail touched the ground. “Uncle?”
> 
> or: there’s a new threat in the fire nation

Zuko is out of breath when he crosses the threshold of what was once the throne room, having sprinted through the palace halls the second Appa’s massive, airbending tail touched the ground.

“Uncle?” he calls.

“Here, Nephew.”

He spins in a frantic, dizzying circle until he spots his uncle seated at the head of the ornate granite table, looking far calmer than he has any right to be. (It’s only the scent of chamomile wafting from the cup set in front of him that suggests he may not be quite as composed as he seems.)

There’s someone seated at Uncle’s side, but Zuko pays them no mind; for all he knows, it’s probably just another possible-cult-member Pai Sho buddy. “What’s going on?”

“General Fung has brought a grave warning to my attention,” Uncle replies, his expression somber.

Zuko’s eyes narrow as he realizes just who exactly is in the palace he was _expressly forbidden from._

(He may not have been the best at abiding by the terms of his own exile, but even at thirteen he knew better than to directly challenge it.)

“Did he happen to mention his removal from the council in this warning?”

“No,” Uncle says tightly, turning to Fung with a calculating glare. “He did not.”

“I apologize, but my message is urgent.”

He sounds utterly insincere, but Zuko forces himself to see past it. ( _For the good of the Fire Nation,_ he reminds the anger already boiling in his veins.) Still, he doesn’t offer Fung the courtesy of acknowledging the man’s half-assed apology, instead waiting with an unwavering scowl until he spits out just what was so important he felt the need to interrupt Zuko’s incredibly peaceful afternoon.

“There have been reports of dark spirit sightings, my Lord.” The acidity in the title is impossible to miss. “Children are being abducted.”

Zuko raises his brow. “You can’t be serious.”

“I assure you, I speak nothing but the truth.”

Fung’s gaze is hard, and Zuko does his best not to shrink under it; he may have all the power in this situation, but it does little to change the fact that Fung has at least thirty years on him.

“Why haven’t I heard about this before now, then?”

“Perhaps your people don’t trust you like you think they do.”

Zuko clenches his fists and bites back a retort. “What is it you want from me? I can’t control Spirits.”

“No, I suppose you can’t. But you _can_ impose a curfew.”

“A curfew?”

Fung nods. “Cancel the Fire Lily Festival. It’s the only way to keep your citizens safe.”

“If I may,” Uncle interrupts, “how would disrupting the festivities help with problems of the Spirit World?”

“Letting the old man fight your battles for you?” Fung scoffs. “I should have expected as much.”

“That old man is your prince,” Zuko hisses, “and you’d do well to offer him some respect.”

“Everyone knows the Spirit World begins to act up when the human world is weak.” Fung leans forward, pinning Zuko in place with a leer. “I think it’s time _you_ grew a spine and fought your own battles.”

_(“Do you think being Fire Lord is easy?”)_

“That is not how the Spirit World works, my friend,” Uncle replies. “The balance between the humans and the Spirits has nothing to do with strength.”

Fung’s gaze never strays from Zuko. “Show that you’re worthy. Protect our nation.”

_(“The throne comes with many pressures, and those pressures will change you!”)_

“Lord Zuko,” Uncle pleads. “Such measures would only make people more fearful.”

_(“But if you can stand the heat, you’ll become something more.”)_

Zuko closes his eyes, growing tired of flicking between the two opposing forces currently brewing a migraine in the back of his head.

_(“Be honest with yourself, Zuko. Do you really believe you can handle it all on your own?”)_

(If the endless ricochet of his father’s poisonous words wasn’t inside of his head, Zuko would seriously consider begging a higher power to deafen his right ear, too.)

He inhales. Exhales. Feels the torches illuminating the room—the wall of fire his forefathers had been so fond of was one of the first things to go—rise and fall with his breath.

“Prince Iroh is right,” he says, turning back to the room’s occupants. “Guards, please escort him out.”

“I knew it,” Fung spits as a guard grabs his arm. “You’re unworthy of the throne. You’re an imposter!”

Zuko waits until the doors slam shut to let his shoulders droop, weighed down by a nauseating sense of deja vu.

He just wants to go back to the beach, back to his friends. (Back to a time when he could close his eyes and have the risk of everything going up in flames confined only to his dreams.)

“Nephew?” Uncle asks hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

Zuko’s muscles tense. “I’m fine.”

“Please understand that if I had known of Fung’s disrespect, I would not have granted him counsel.”

( _Disrespect—_ the word makes vomit rise in the back of Zuko’s throat.)

“It’s not your fault,” he grits out, unsure of whether the sour taste in his mouth stems from guilt or resentment. “I shouldn’t have left the palace.”

Uncle sighs. “I had hoped my assistance would not call your legitimacy into question. Perhaps I was too optimistic to think otherwise.”

“Isn’t that why you left me in the first place?” Zuko retorts. “Or were you really just trying to get rid of me?”

He deflates at the obvious _hurt_ on Uncle’s face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

When Uncle doesn’t reply, he pinches the bridge of his nose with a groan. “Just- just go. I need to deal with this spirit threat.”

“Perhaps the Avatar may be of some help.”

“I don’t think that’s—“

“Avatar Aang!” Uncle calls, his voice easily overpowering Zuko’s. “Please, come in!”

Zuko winces as the door blows open with a gust of wind, both in concern for his sanity and the creaking door-hinges.

“What’s going on?” Aang asks as he bursts in, skidding to a stop at Zuko’s side with Sokka close behind.

“Yeah,” Sokka adds. “And what the hell was _Fung_ doing here?”

If Zuko wasn’t currently trapped in the middle of the room, he’d be banging his head against the wall.

_Agni, it’s going to be a long day._

“It’s nothing,” he replies, waving his hand in dismissal. “Just some political bullshit.”

He can feel Uncle’s reproachful gaze on his back and clenches his fists tightly at his sides; the man has no right to challenge him, considering it’s _his_ fault for delegitimizing Zuko’s rule in the first place!

It’s clear from Aang and Sokka’s stares that they don’t believe him in the slightest, a fact which leaves him practically vibrating with even more thinly-veiled annoyance.

“That guy seemed really upset,” Aang says, his brow furrowed as though trying to puzzle out the literal multitude of reasons anyone under the sun would have stoking the flames of their ire at Zuko. “What happened?”

Zuko doesn’t answer, instead posing a question of his own in what hopefully isn’t too obvious of a diversion. “Where are Toph and Katara?”

“Toph said she’s tired of bureaucracy, so she’s in the garden,” Sokka replies, and _wow,_ his face of concern is a million times more painful than Aang’s.

“Oh?” Zuko can’t help but snark. “Like you were _all_ supposed to be?”

“Excuse me for being worried,” Sokka mutters sarcastically.

“Okay, you’re excused,” Zuko snaps, bitterness dripping from his incisors like venom. “Now leave me alone so I can deal with this mess.”

Sokka’s expression tightens into a nauseating cross between anger and sadness, and Zuko can’t remember the last time he slept through the night, and he’s just so. Fucking. _Tired._

“Hey, I know!” Aang’s peppy voice is even more insufferable than usual, and Zuko resists the urge to cover his ears (or covertly angle his left side to face him). “What if we go investigate while you do all your Fire Lord stuff?”

 _Fire Lord stuff._ Agni, he makes it all sound so fucking easy.

(He wonders if _Avatar stuff_ is actually equally as taxing, and Aang just happens to be strong enough to _not_ lose his shit every five minutes.)

It’s Sokka who ultimately gives Aang’s idea the go-ahead when it becomes clear Zuko’s ever-dry vocal cords can’t form a response.

(Is his throat just sore from all the shouting, or has his body finally wrought revenge on his never ending self-sabotage? The world may never know.)

“Great,” he rasps out eventually. “I have some things to take care of.”

He shoots a look at Uncle when he hears him clear his throat. _“Alone.”_

He leaves before someone has the chance to get in the way of what needs to be done; it’s only in the hall, moments later, that he realizes there were no longer flowers adorning Sokka’s head. (He can’t decide whether he should be relieved or not.)

 _The road to hell,_ he thinks, _is truly paved with good intentions._

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Toph says from where she lays on a makeshift bed of rock. “There are Spirits snatching babies?”

Sokka sighs, lowering himself down to sit beside her near the pond (but far enough to be out of Katara’s immediate line of sight if she happens to get too waterbend-y.) “Apparently.”

Toph snorts. “Sounds fake, but okay.”

“Hey,” Aang admonishes. “Spirits are real!”

“Sorry, buddy, but I’m with Toph on this one,” Sokka replies. “Fung is just trying to start shit.”

“Who?” Katara asks, looking up from the eddies she’s swirling around the turtleducks in the water.

“He’s this asshole who used to be on the council,” Sokka explains with a scowl. “Stupid fucking Ozai loyalist.”

Toph pounds her fist into her palm with a wicked glare, the motion disturbing all the concrete tiles in the vicinity. “Where is this guy? I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“I’m with you on that one,” Sokka says wistfully. “Although it may start a civil war.”

Toph huffs. “It’d be worth it.”

“Sorry, but can we get back to the whole Spirit thing?”

Though Katara’s words may beg to differ, the shadow of a glare on her face clearly broadcasts the fact that she, too, would like to pummel the bastard.

“Yeah,” Aang adds, apparently content to rejoin the conversation now that it’s strayed away from plots of violence. “Why would someone lie about them?”

His eyes are wide with a shocking amount of incconce for the literal Avatar, and it’s starting to piss Sokka off.

 _He’s like twelve, doofus,_ he reminds himself. _Of course he doesn’t know the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of geopolitics._

“Probably to get Zuko to do something impulsive.”

“Like pushing us away?”

Sokka flinches at the sheer sincerity—worse, the sheer _accuracy—_ of Aang’s question. He forces his irritation, his _fear_ (because why, why can’t Zuko ever just fucking _talk_ to him?) to the backburner.

“Like canceling the Fire Lily Festival,” he corrects.

“I like flowers as much as the next person,” Toph interjects, “but what’s so bad about that?”

“It’s a diplomacy thing,” he explains. “Canceling this close to it would piss off a _lot_ of people.”

“So then we should _definitely_ check this Spirit thing out!”

Sokka blinks at Aang. “Did you miss the part where we established that Fung wasn’t telling the truth?”

“I don’t know,” Katara says thoughtfully. “It could be worth it to speak to some people and make sure everything’s okay.”

Sokka sighs; of _course_ Katara had to come to her “sweetie’s” rescue. “Seriously?”

He turns to Toph, determined to get at least _someone_ on his side. Her freaky earthbender sense must register his stare, because she simply shrugs. “Can I beat people up if they get in our way?”

“I mean…” Katara starts, chewing on her lip as something mischievous (well, to the extent that she could actually _be_ mischievous) glints in her eyes. “I won’t stop you.”

Toph grins. “Works for me.”

She nearly sends Sokka toppling over when she cracks her knuckles and summons a rock to push her up to her feet.

“So,” she says, rolling out her shoulders. “Where do we start?”

* * *

Zuko’s head is buzzing.

It’s simultaneously too loud and too quiet, and Zuko would do anything, _anything_ to make it go away. There’s a jumble of words rattling around in his skull, _Spirits_ and _worthiness_ and _imposter_ and fuck, he just wants it to _stop._

He may have gotten rid of Fung, but the sneer of his voice has yet to disappear. He may have gotten rid of Uncle, but the accusation of his shadowy control—of Zuko being nothing more than a puppet—clings to him like the darkest of shadows.

(He may have chased off Sokka and Aang—spared them the agony of his newest headache—but the bile in his throat tastes all the more bitter for it.)

He glances over his shoulder as he slips through the mostly empty halls, half-convinced he’ll see one of his many ghosts trailing behind him; or, if not them, perhaps an assassin. It’s been nearly two weeks since the last attempt, and he’s stuck endlessly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He should count himself fortunate that this past string of days hasn’t earned him any new scars. (He should remember that he’s lucky to have been born in the first place.)

He steals through the palace with footsteps shrouded in practiced silence, weaving between empty halls and long forgotten passageways. It seems that his body, as usual, is fifty paces ahead of his mind; and by the time it catches up…

_(dark, cold stones, iron bars, predatory gold eyes)_

By the time it catches up, he is already here, in the same place he always ends up; kneeling across from the same man who’s always waiting on the other side.

He bows his head.

“Hello again, Father. I need your advice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....sorry
> 
> idk what’s gonna happen this week (aka whether or not democracy will still exist) so it may be a little longer before the next update, fair warning


	15. knives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The festivities are in full swing when Mai arrives, her eyes narrowed in disdain at the flowers that have haunted her every waking moment for what feels like an eternity.
> 
> or: the fire lily festival, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have a chapter in these trying times (@ nevada and pennsylvania please get it together im begging you)

Mai is tired. It’s a simple truth about what has become a simple existence, days and nights dedicated to seemingly infinite work and sore, swollen feet. The blisters on her fingers sown by the press of garden shears have grown into calluses, and her skin is dry and achy.

She hasn’t spoken more than a few words to anyone outside of her family in over a week, and even then it’s just to bark out orders to royal assistants and gardeners who are too thick-headed to understand the wholly uncomplicated process of planting and pruning flowers.

Yes, she’ll admit that preparing for the festival has given her a certain sense of purpose; at the same time, her dirt-clogged fingernails and purplish under-eye bags beg for the whole ordeal to end already. (The fact that the influx of visitors has forced her to interact with a whole host of new people may also play a role in her disillusionment.)

The worst part of all, though, is that she hasn’t seen Kei Lo. His absence is a double-edged sword of loneliness and relief, imbued with an overwhelming anxiety regarding just what, exactly, the New Ozai Society is planning.

The second-worst part—at least, what she tells herself is the second—is that Ty Lee isn’t coming to Caldera. According to her last letter, all the warriors had to stay on Kyoshi Island to deal with a sudden onslaught of wildfires.

(It sucks, but at least means her overwhelmingly confusing  _ feelings  _ won’t make her do something she regrets.)

Her mind, when not occupied by thoughts of Ty Lee, keeps circling back to the meeting Kei Lo had casually mentioned having with the Fire Lord. It’s definitely some sort of plot, considering he’d up and vanished without a word days later; but since the Fire Nation has yet to collapse, she can only assume the plan fell through. She’s glad, obviously, but that doesn’t change the fact that  _ something  _ must still be underfoot.

(The lack of even a casual invitation to the festivities from the boy undeniably head over heels for her only strengthened her conviction.)

Since it’s quite possible she’s the only one with knowledge of the impending threat, it stands to reason that the burden rests on her to outwit it.

So as she packs fresh earth into yet another large pot, she reminds herself of the silent vow she made while sitting at Zuko’s bedside last year, unable to tear her gaze from the poorly-concealed pain on his face and the massive wound on his chest: she will do everything in her power to keep her friend safe.

(Then she thinks about Azula’s hand on his throat, and wonders if her promise is as empty as the rest of them.)

* * *

The festival is in full swing when Mai arrives, her eyes narrowed in disdain at the flowers that have haunted her every waking moment for what feels like an eternity. She’s not nearly modest enough to deny the display is impressive, and it fills her with more than a little pride; truly, it’s far better the festivities she remembers from her childhood, and it’s leagues above those in her recent memory.

(She supposes she ought to give some credit to the fact that there even  _ was  _ a Fire Lily Festival last year to begin with, what with the massive war effort and all; unfortunately, she can’t find it in herself to care all that much.)

She makes her way through the crowd unnoticed with a practiced ease, slipping past mushy couples and skirting around horribly rambunctious children whose parents clearly don’t understand the concept of supervision. The air is rife with the mingling scents of spicy food and fire lilies, a nostalgic combination that makes something deep within her ache.

She’s not quite sure what she’s looking for—the last few times she’d spoken to Kei Lo, he’d been annoyingly vague about his evil plots—but Mai hasn’t come this far without being observant. The weight of her knives tucked in her sleeves is comforting as she scans the throngs of people for anything amiss; but other than the frankly unsettling number of people already stumbling drunk before noon, there’s nothing.

“Hey, you’re Knife Girl!”

Mai jolts, looking around wildly before settling on the short figure she recognizes as one of the Avatar’s companions; more specifically, as the one who’s launched her fair share of rocks at Mai’s head and left her body nearly as bruised as her ego.

“It’s Mai.”

“Yeah, I’m still gonna call you Knife Girl,” she replies with a shrug.

Mai forces back a groan. “No offense, but aren’t you blind?”

The earthbender rolls her eyes, the milky film over her pupils simultaneously answering Mai’s question and creating many more in its wake. “Duh. What about it?”

“Then how did you know it was me?”

“You haven’t heard? I invented metalbending.” She grins. “And you, my friend, are carrying a  _ lot  _ of steel.”

Huh. Metalbending. If Mai didn’t know the sheer power of the girl in front of her, she’d call bullshit; instead, she finds herself stuck in silent awe.

“Oh, and you can call me Toph. Or the greatest earthbender in the world. Your call.”

“I think I’ll stick with Toph.”

Toph just shrugs. “It was worth a shot.”

Mai has absolutely no idea what to do with the conversation she’s found herself trapped in. Luckily, Toph is more than willing to carry it.

“So,” Toph says after a moment, folding her arms across her chest. “What are you doing here?”

“Is it illegal to enjoy a festival?”

Toph scoffs. “I know you’re hiding something.”

“Yeah?” Mai snarks. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong.”

“Maybe you missed the memo,” Toph says, wholly unfazed by Mai’s dismissal, “but I can tell when people are lying.”

Okay, Mai can accept metalbending—not matter how absurd it sounds—but being a human lie detector? Seriously?

“You’re gonna ask me to prove it,” Toph continues, seeminly reading Mai’s mind. “And I’ll remind you, once again, that I’m the best earthbender ever.”

_ And the most stubborn,  _ Mai thinks bitterly.

“Why aren’t you with your friends?” she asks instead.

“Sokka’s being all mopey,” Toph explains with a scowl. “And the two lovebirds are being disgusting.”

A quick glance over Toph’s shoulder confirms her accusations: Katara and the Avatar are literally staring into each other’s eyes, and Sokka’s frowning like someone just told him his pet fire ferret died.

(Or, more accurately, like a certain Fire Lord told him to steer clear while he was politicking.)

“Point taken.”

Mai sighs.  _ I guess I’m really doing this. _

“Look,” she says carefully. “Can you keep a secret?”

_ “Can I keep a secret,”  _ Toph repeats mockingly. “Of course!”

“I think someone’s staging something.”

Toph blinks. “Care to elaborate?”

Mai grabs Toph by her sleeve to tug her towards a more abandoned area of the festival. She claims a spot on an empty bench, then watches with an irritated sort of fascination as Toph ignores the ample space beside her and earthbends her own seat.

“I have a...source,” Mai says carefully, “on the inside.”

“Like a spy?” Toph is creepily enthusiastic, but it’s not like Mai can get out of this conversation now

“Well…” Mai twists her lips. “He doesn’t exactly  _ know _ I’m using him for intel.”

“Savage.”

Mai shrugs. “I guess. The problem is, I haven’t heard from him recently, and I’m worried something’s going to happen.”

“Like what?”

“Beats me.”

“So to recap,” Toph says, “there may or may not be terrorists here, and you think you’re the perfect person to intervene.”

Mai nods. “I can’t let them get to Zuko.”

“Well I, for one, am also not on board with something happening to Sparky, so I guess I’m in.”

“What? Just like that?”

“I didn’t get this far without being impulsive.”

Mai frowns, but she isn’t about to turn down the free help.

Toph seems to take her lack of response as a go-ahead. She rises from her makeshift bench with a grin, then grinds the structure back into dirt with a stomp of her suspiciously shoeless foot. “Where to, Knife Girl?”

“I guess we should find Zuko.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Toph says. “Sparky’s heart is freakishly fast.”

Mai, despite knowing the gesture is futile, raises her brow. “You can sense that?”

Toph nods as she plants her feet more firmly on the ground, tilting her head as though listening for something. “He’s over by the Earth King’s table.”

“That’s in the restricted section.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me.”

“It’s guarded,” Mai explains with a scowl. “Only diplomats are allowed in.”

Toph grins. “Who said anything about being allowed?”

* * *

She has to hand it to Toph—the girl is downright  _ conniving.  _ Her earthbending is impressively silent, and the guards posted outside what’s functionally the royal schmoozing area don’t even twitch as they ascend on a column of rock.

“Do you see anything?” Toph asks.

Mai shields her eyes from the sun as she scans the scene below her. Her gaze lingers momentarily on the glint of the crown nestled in Zuko’s hair, the gold highlighted by shimmering embroidery on his silk robes. He holds a glass of something in one hand, and Mai hopes for his sake that it’s alcoholic; Agni knows the poor man could use it. He’s nodding along to what King Kuei—a certified idiot, if the memory of her time undercover in Ba Sing Se serves as any indication—is saying, and doing a fairly impressive job of actually appearing interested.

(Mai still catches the small droop of head every few seconds, the way he shakes himself awake and somehow startles himself with the sight of the Earth King’s stupid bear at his side every time.)

Mai relays all of this to Toph, who seems to share a similar disdain for the man.

“He’s duller than a pile of rocks,” she grumbles. “And I should know. I  _ love  _ piles of rocks!”

Mai snorts, then returns to her game of high-stakes  _ I Spy. _

“I don’t get it,” she groans after another minute of futile searching. “Everything looks normal!”

“Maybe you were wrong.” Toph doesn’t say it with any malice, but Mai finds herself bristling nonetheless.

“No,” she retorts. “There has to be  _ something.  _ Do you see anything with your bending?”

“It’s not really seeing,” Toph explains. “I can tell where people and things are, but that doesn’t exactly help me identify stuff.”

“What about earlier? With my knives?”

“Huh,” Toph says thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea.”

She cracks her knuckles before thrusting her arms out to either side. The motion sends their pedastal shooting back into the ground, and it’s only Toph’s surprisingly strong grip on her arm that keeps Mai from falling over.

“Okay,” she says, rolling out her shoulders. “My turn.”

Mai isn’t really sure what to do with herself as Toph does her earthbending thing, so she takes to rubbing her fingers against one of the blades tucked in the hem of her sleeves. Despite the summer heat, the steel is still cold to the touch. It’s oddly soothing.

She retracts her hand when Toph’s head snaps up.

“Over there,” she says, nodding towards one of the tents set up on the outskirts of the guarded area. “Someone has a ton of metal on them.”

Mai cranes her neck, trying to peer around the side of the silk tarp. “I can’t see anything.”

Toph furrows her brow in concentration. “I keep sensing your knives, and it’s throwing me off.”

“What do you want me to do?” Mai asks defensively. “Get rid of them?

“No, just—“ She wags her hand noncommitally in the opposite direction. “Go wait over there for a minute.”

Mai wants to refuse, but Toph  _ has  _ been a big help, so she complies. She can’t really tell what sort of earthbending magic is going on from this far away, and her distance from Zuko is doing a number on her already overwhelming anxiety. She fidgets with her knives again until Toph waves at her to return.

The concerned expression she’s met with is not at all reassuring.

“Well?”

“It’s weird,” Toph starts, “but I still keep sensing your knives.”

“Oh, sorry,” Mai replies sarcastically. “Did you want me to go all the way home?”

Toph shakes her head. “You don’t understand. The person with all the metal on them has  _ your knives.” _

A chilling dread creeps over Mai, goosebumps rising on her skin as she shivers. 

Because there’s only one other person with weapons identical to hers; it is, after all, the same person who taught her to wield them in the first place.

_ “Dad.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot thickens...


	16. jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko had been dragged off to mingle with the visiting royalty almost immediately, whisked away from Sokka before he could so much as ask for a dance.
> 
> or: the fire lily festival, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly longer chapter to celebrate the u.s. not becoming a dictatorship yay!
> 
> cw for drinking, internalized homophobia, allusions to abuse & mild sexual content (in the section that begins with “he does bring it up...”)

Look, Sokka likes parties as much as the next guy. (And by that, he means _a lot.)_ It’s a recently acquired taste—the South Pole wasn’t exactly rager central—but a wholeheartedly enjoyed taste nonetheless. And yes, the Fire Lily Festival is checking all his boxes: good food, great music, copious amounts of alcohol...

All his boxes, that is, except one: the warmth of His Jerkiness at his side.

Zuko had been dragged off to mingle with the visiting royalty almost immediately, whisked away from Sokka before he could so much as ask for a dance. He’d shot Sokka an apologetic look before he disappeared, but that did little to dull the pain in Sokka’s chest.

The sight of his sister and Aang acting all lovey-dovey had quickly become more unbearable than usual, and Toph had slinked off to Spirits-know-where sometime between his third and fourth drinks.

(Should he be this well on his way to getting drunk? Probably not. Too bad he can’t find it in himself to care.)

He turns back to the cocktail he’s currently nursing, some fruity red thing with a pinkish salt-coated rim. Why is everyone in the Fire Nation so obsessed with red? Seriously, it’s overkill! He should really talk to Zuko about changing the color scheme to something less aggressive.

(Then he thinks about Zuko, all dressed up in those gorgeous burgundy robes that Sokka just wants to tear off of him, and downs the rest of his glass in one sip.)

Great. Now he needs another drink.

He’s too busy wondering if he can convince the bartender to overpour to notice he’s drifted towards the roped-off noble area until he’s standing face-to-face with a wholly displeased guard.

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I must’ve gotten turned around.”

He scurries away before anyone can notice his blush (though if they did, he’s fairly certain he could believably blame it on the alcohol).

Alcohol. Right. Back to Operation: Get Plastered to Avoid Feelings.

The universe, apparently, has other plans, because his next step—rather than bringing him closer to more sweet, sweet liquor—sends him stumbling into someone who, had he been less scatterbrained, he definitely should have seen coming.

“Oops, my bad, I—“ He pauses, brows creasing together in confusion. “Toph?”

“Quiet,” she hisses, grabbing his hand in a terrifyingly crushing grip and dragging him away from the crowd.

“What are you doing?”

“What part of _quiet_ do you not understand?”

Sokka opens and closes his mouth a few times, eventually settling on saying nothing to avoid a surefire pummeling.

He should be commended for his impressive show of self-control, especially when he manages to stay quiet when Toph suddenly jerks him towards a nearby alley.

“What the hell?” Okay, maybe not completely quiet.

She shushes him with a hiss, pressing him against the outer wall of a currently vacant restaurant as she manipulates her meteor bracelet into a key.

“I know you can’t read, but the sign says it’s closed for the festival,” Sokka points out.

Toph just glares as she pushes the door open and shoves Sokka inside with far more force than necessary.

He’d protest—complaining _is_ his specialty, after all—but he’s distracted by a sudden commotion in the otherwise empty street. He ducks down on instinct, pressing his ear against the wood just below the window and straining to hear what sounds like the beginnings of a vicious argument.

“Let go of me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Sokka doesn’t recognize the man’s voice, but he sure as hell knows the deadpan one that follows.

“Don’t lie to me.”

He risks popping his head up to peer out the window and yep, that’s definitely Mai.

“I’m not lying!”

“He is,” Toph whispers, as though that isn’t blatantly obvious from how defensive the guy is acting.

“I know what you were planning.”

“Is that so?” The man sounds incredibly smug, and Sokka kind of really wants to punch him.

(Much like he still wants to punch Fung who, just as Sokka—and literally everyone other than Aang—predicted, was lying about the whole Spirit thing.)

“You were going to attack Zuko!”

Wait, _what?_

“Seriously,” Mai continues. “Have you lost your mind? This is treason!”

“You’ve never been able to see past your own needs, my daughter.”

_Double what?_

“Please, listen to me,” the man—Mai’s _dad—_ pleads. “Everything I do is because I love the Fire Nation.”

Mai scoffs. “You’re insane.”

“Zuko compromised our strength! He cares more about appeasing the Avatar than defending his people!”

Sokka tenses, because those are some _fighting words_ , but Toph plants a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head.

Right. Waiting. Gathering intel. _Eyes on the prize, Sokka._

“Look at what happened with the colonies. The Fire Nation citizens who live there no longer have any control over their lives!”

His tone softens, then. “Believe me, Mai, I want a quiet life. I miss you and your brother and your mother so much, but as long as that weakling sits on the throne, none of us will ever be safe.”

“If he’s such a weakling,” Mai shoots back, “why were you plotting to kill him like a coward?”

“I never wanted to kill him!” He sounds affronted, but Sokka doesn’t need Toph’s confirmation to know that it’s a lie.

(Tui and La, why does _everyone_ have it out for Zuko? Can’t they _please_ just give it a rest?)

“I don’t understand why you’re still defending him. You were his only real Fire Nation friend, yet he pushed you away.”

“My relationship with Zuko is none of your business.”

“I just want what’s best for you!”

“What’s _best for me_ ,” Mai retorts, “is you not trying to off the one person actually bringing peace to this world!”

Okay, Sokka _really_ owes Mai that apology Katara was pestering him about after this.

“If you don’t think there’s any truth in what I’m saying, go ahead and arrest me.”

For a moment, no one moves. Sokka can hear his heart pounding in his ears, adrenaline rushing through him with nowhere to go.

The energy buzzing in his veins suddenly has a new target when Toph announces that Mai’s dad has bolted.

“What?!” He jumps to his feet, hot on Toph’s heels as she bursts out of their hiding place.

“He’s getting away!” Toph yells.

She slides into an earthbending stance, but barely has time to move a pebble before she’s being forced to bend away a knife that cuts through the air far too close to her tiny arms.

Mai’s feet are encased in stone before she can blink, a startling number of weapons clattering to the ground at Toph’s command.

“Wait!” she shouts as Toph and Sokka move to chase down the guy who _literally just admitted to plotting Zuko’s assassination._ “You can’t follow him!”

“Give me one good reason not to!”

Mai is unnervingly unwavering under Sokka’s glare.

“Because he’s planning something else. I know him, and I know his stupid cult. They wouldn’t just send one person.”

Toph frowns. “She’s telling the truth.”

“We don’t know that!” Sokka protests. “Azula tricked you before, remember?”

“I’m on your side, asshole,” Mai says, scowling. “This was part of something bigger than Zuko.”

Sokka’s retort is all fired up and ready to go when he realizes it.

“The Earth King.” The words almost stick in Sokka’s throat, trapped by the sheer dread they drudge up from deep within his gut. “He was going to attack Kuei.”

“Why would he do that?” Toph asks.

“Remember what Fung said the other day about getting Zuko to cancel the festival?” He takes Toph’s glower as an affirmative, and doesn’t have time to pause from his breakneck logic to explain it to Mai. “They could claim Zuko willfully ignored a security concern, that he... _wanted_ something to happen.”

The conclusion traveling up and out of Sokka’s mouth makes him feel utterly sick, and he barely manages to choke out the rest of his horrifying prognosis. “They want another war.”

“Why the hell would anyone want another war?” Toph certainly isn’t alone in her disgust towards the mere thought of more violence, but the final conclusion is now staring Sokka right in the face, far too close to ignore.

Mai, it seems, has also begrudgingly reached the end of the pile of twisting evidence, and beats Sokka to what is literally his trademarked job of being the ‘plans guy.’

“They want to keep the colonies.”

The resounding silence—the mortifying acceptance of an inarguable truth—is only interrupted by Toph’s aggressive stomp as she destroys Mai’s restraints.

“So, then,” she says, dusting a layer of dirt from god-knows-where off of her hands. “Any idea what the fuck we’re supposed to do now?”

* * *

The Fire Lily Festival is, in Zuko’s humble opinion, going shockingly well. It’s a bizarre turn of events, considering his life has consisted of one clusterfuck after another. He even looks, by his (incredibly low) standards, better than usual. The scented candles in the bathroom cast his face in a warm glow, softening both his scar and an alarming number of new worry-lines in the mirror.

He splashes a bit of water on his face in an attempt to alleviate some of the flush that’s risen to his cheeks. (Really, it’s not _his_ fault that he can only withstand such extensive political niceties with the assistance of alcohol.)

He needs the liquid courage now more than ever, what with the impending ceremony Uncle strongarmed him into participating in.

 _“It will show a sense of unity to your people,”_ he’d said. _“What better way to promote an era of peace and kindness than with a little love?”_

Zuko, for one thing, can think of more than a few other ways, all of which would be preferable to entertaining the whims of courtship proposed by various nobles’ daughters.

(He doesn’t tell Uncle—will _never_ tell Uncle—that the basis of his agreement was not a proverb or metaphor; rather, it was harsh words echoing between metal bars and stone walls and _shit_ _,_ maybe it really _was_ a metaphor after all.)

He stares at his reflection, his gaze turning more critical as he begins the familiar routine of picking apart the childish fear painted in broad brushstrokes of burnt skin; with his hair carefully pulled into its traditional topknot, he has no hope of hiding the insecurities that hide in each crevice of scarred flesh.

He may have his father’s molten eyes and sharp cheeks, but the blemish on his face distorts any confusion between his appearance and Ozai’s; no, instead it marks him _as_ Ozai’s, the handiwork of paternal disappointment made permanent for every nation to have the misfortune of seeing.

(It’s both a blessing and a curse, and he knows his banishment helped him grow into the person he is but fuck if it still doesn’t fill him to the brim with shame.)

 _“Of all the people in the world, I have the wisdom you need—wisdom of experience!”_ his father had declared during Zuko’s first visit to his underground prison. (Or maybe it was the second time? The fourth? His skittish mind prefers not to count.)

(All he knows is it wasn’t the third, _never_ the third, never the time when he lost control of the anger and hurt roiling inside of him—because how dare Ozai, how fucking _dare he_ raise a hand towards Azula—and left his knuckles bloody and bruised.)

Father had forgiven him, though; he’d still helped, even as the fragile authority Zuko had garnered amongst his people began to evaporate.

 _“Show them you’re strong,”_ he’d ordered. _“Show them you’re not disgraceful.”_

(From the way his father’s lips had curled in disgust, it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out which particular disgrace he was referring to.)

So here he is, now, hiding in the bathroom and attempting to convince himself not to be a coward. He’s scared, but it’s more than that—he’s _ashamed._

What if he can’t pull it off? Pretending to be single is one thing, but pretending to be straight is a whole different ball game. It’s almost pitiful, the way he’s forgotten just how he used to convince himself (and everyone around him) that he loved Mai as anything more than a friend.

He wishes Father and Azula weren’t so right when they accused him of _(_ _being weak, traitorous, unfit to rule)_ wearing his heart on his sleeve.

He sighs; although he’d love nothing more than to hide for the rest of the festival (or for eternity—he’ll let the fates take their pick), his people are expecting him. He forces his face back into a mask of calm that he hopes isn’t too see-through and pushes open the door.

He jumps when he sees a guard standing directly outside of it.

“I apologize, my Lord,” the woman says, offering him a quick bow. “But there was an altercation while you were away.”

Zuko feels dread pooling in his stomach. “What happened?”

“None of the guests were injured, but one of the nobles was forcefully removed.”

“Do you know who it was?”

The guard nods. “I believe it was Master Ukano.”

“Mai’s father?”

“That’s correct, sir. In fact, I think she was the one who pulled him away, though he went a bit...unwillingly.”

Zuko frowns; he knows Mai and her dad aren’t on the best of terms, but confronting him in front of foreign diplomats? Seriously?

“Thank you for informing me,” he says after a moment, praying to any god that will listen that his distress isn’t too palpable. “Please tell the other guests I apologize for any disturbance and will be out shortly for the courtship dances.”

“Of course,” the guard replies, bowing again and heading back outside.

He takes a deep breath before following her.

(Agni, why does he already know this is going to end poorly?)

* * *

It’s official: Sokka is straight up not having a good time. Being separated from Zuko was bad enough, not to mention the added stressor of a secret society that’s apparently gung-ho on knocking Zuko off the throne.

But in the end, neither of those things do him in; no, the straw that breaks what Sokka likes to think is a very strong ostrich-horse’s back is the sight of Zuko dancing with a near-constant stream of would-be suitors.

(He imagines Zuko flirting with them, offering that awkward smile that never fails to make Sokka’s insides melt, and he wants to scream.)

Having to keep their relationship hidden is bad enough, but this? Watching one giggling girl after another hold _his_ boyfriend’s hands? Place a flower crown on _his_ boyfriend's head? It’s a whole new kind of torture.

Whether or not Zuko is attracted to them—which, as he’s admitted to Sokka in a few conversations that were either alcohol-fueled or as painful as pulling teeth, he most definitely is not—is beside the point; it’s about the _principle_ of the thing.

The thing which, let it be known, Zuko didn’t bother giving him even a tiny crumb of a warning about.

He startles at the sudden warmth of a palm on his shoulder and a familiar voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just peachy,” he replies sarcastically, crossing his arms and dislodging Katara’s hand.

He doesn’t have to look at his sister to know that she’s frowning.

“Where’s Aang?” he asks, trying to shift the unwanted attention off of him.

“I left him with Toph. I figured you could use the company.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sokka says, waving her off in what he hopes comes off as nonchalance. “Go back to your ‘sweetie’.”

Katara huffs defensively. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Look,” Katara says slowly. “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be.”

He follows her uncomfortably concerned gaze to where she’s staring at Zuko, who’s dancing with yet another undoubtedly flirting girl.

“Do I?” he asks bitterly. “Clearly _he_ doesn’t think so.”

The blush on Zuko’s face is visible even from a distance, and his stiff posture and awkward grin—quirks with which Sokka is achingly intimate—make his chest feel far too tight.

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“No.” Katara looks ready to question his judgment, so he quickly continues with far too much bitterness. “Because he didn’t fucking tell me.”

Katara is _really_ frowning now, her features screwed up in concern. “It probably slipped his mind.”

“Sure,” Sokka mutters. “Of course it did.”

He pointedly doesn’t think about how many other things seemed to have “slipped Zuko’s mind,” and suddenly his agreement with Toph and Mai to keep the New Ozai Society’s plot under wraps until they get a better idea of the bigger picture feels all the more justified.

“I know he has his reasons, but…” He trails off.

“But it still feels like shit.”

Sokka quirks a brow; since when has his little sister sworn? He suspects it’s probably _(_ _definitely)_ Toph’s doing.

“I was going to say ‘bad,’ but that works too.”

Katara rolls her eyes in a welcome departure from what she would deny to be (but 100% is) pity.

“Promise me you’ll talk to him about it tonight?”

Sokka’s sight once again wanders to Zuko, honing in on the fire lilies nestled in his hair near his crown and the shimmer of his robes in the sun.

“Okay,” he says, his mind stuck somewhere far, far away from their conversation. “I will.”

* * *

He does bring it up later that night, though his sister would never approve of (or hear about) the circumstances surrounding it.

His lips are latched to Zuko’s exposed skin, his weight pressing him down into the mattress as he trails his teeth down his body. His pale chest is covered in purpling hickeys, some of which are dangerously close to his throat.

 _Good,_ Sokka thinks darkly. _Let them_ _see._

There’s something fierce and possessive festering inside him, and he’s practically vibrating with how badly he wants— _needs_ —to remind Zuko that he’s Sokka’s, and Sokka’s alone.

“I saw you with those girls,” he says between bites.

“Sokka…” Zuko looks sad all of a sudden, and as much as Sokka feels vindicated, he returns to kissing and nipping with a vengeance that leaves Zuko breathless. “You know that meant nothing, right? I’m all yours.”

_All mine. He’s all mine._

Sokka crawls forward to press his mouth against Zuko’s, desperate to solidify the idea that Zuko is truly only his.

“Say it again. Tell me you’re all mine.”

Zuko’s lips part slightly, his eyes blown asymmetrically wide.

“I’m yours,” he repeats with an unsteady breath.

“Yours,” he says again as Sokka works him open and grips his thighs hard enough to bruise.

“Yours,” he pants, the sheets clenched between his fingers. “Only yours.”

Sokka snaps his hips forward harder, fueled by a strange sense of utter desperation. He groans at the strangled noises Zuko’s trying so valiantly to hide behind his palm.

“I wanna hear you,” he says, reaching a hand down between them.

“Yours,” Zuko hisses, his body tensing in the way that Sokka knows means he’s close.

“Yours, yours, _yours_.” His words pitch up at the end, morphing into a desperate moan as he chases his finish, Sokka close behind him.

* * *

Zuko holds him after they clean up, Sokka’s cheek pressed close to his collarbone. It’s an odd reversal of roles—usually Zuko clings to him like a pentapus—but not an unwelcome one.

“I’m sorry,” he says into Sokka’s hair. “I should’ve told you.”

“Why didn’t you?” His question holds no malice, just soft and sleepy like the warmth thrumming through his veins.

“I guess I was scared.”

“Of what?”

He feels Zuko shrug. “That you’d be mad?”

His theory, though unsure-sounding, isn’t too far from the truth; after all, hadn’t that been _exactly_ how Sokka felt before their wonderful bout of stress relief?

“I’d still rather know.”

Zuko nods as though reminding himself, the motion jostling Sokk’s head. “Okay. I’ll tell you next time—I mean, if there even _is_ a next time, because, you know, this part of the festival is over, and—“

“Zuko?” he asks, raising a hand up to gently cup his cheek. “Please shut up.”

“Right. That’s- that’s a good idea. Not that all your ideas aren’t good ones, but, you know…”

Sokka groans dramatically, pressing a kiss to Zuko’s neck and slinging his arm over his body. “Less talking, more sleeping.”

The hand he isn’t currently laying on flicks upwards, withdrawing the flames glowing in the room’s various lamps.

“‘Night,” Sokka mumbles quietly, pressing his face into Zuko’s wonderfully warm skin. “Love you.”

He freezes. Oh fuck, shit fuck dammit he did _not_ just say that. He crosses his fingers and toes—hell, even his eyes for good measure—and prays that his admission fell on deaf ears. (Why did he have to lay on Zuko’s _right_ side? Was their prior conversation _really_ that important for him to actually be able to hear?)

(Katara would argue yes, but the fierce blush crawling across the entirety of Sokka’s entire upper body says otherwise. Shit, can Zuko sense heat? Is that a thing firebenders—no, firebending _masters—_ can do? Tui and La, Sokka’s ready to end his life on the spot.)

He tenses as Zuko’s breath hitches, but it quickly evens out. The slow rise and fall of his chest signals that he must’ve already passed out, and Sokka thanks what is clearly the doing of his phenomenal sex skills before he, too falls asleep.

* * *

_“Love you.”_ Sokka said he loved him. No, Zuko must have misheard. It had to be a trick of his frustratingly shitty hearing, because there’s no way, _no way_ Sokka feels that way about him.

...Right?

And Zuko may be a coward, hiding under the guise of unconsciousness until he feels Sokka’s body go lax, but when he presses his lips back into Sokka’s hair, it’s with a whisper of “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if i should change the rating on this? pls lmk (& also your general thoughts, fr i thrive off validation)


	17. espionage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They manage to last a grand total of three weeks before everything goes to shit again.
> 
> or: sokka sleuths. the results are not ideal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me writing this instead of doing my assignments...
> 
> cw for allusions to abuse & sex
> 
> (also i’m going back and changing the chapter titles bc thesaurus.com has run dry lol)

They manage to last a grand total of three weeks before everything goes to shit again.

Well...okay, Sokka is willing to concede that certain aspects of the past month  _ may _ have been less than ideal; and  _ yes,  _ Tiny Katara That Lives In His Brain, he hears your protests loud and clear.

(Real Katara is off playing peacekeeper with Aang again, though, so Sokka will take the opportunity to continue living in denial, thank you very much.)

In his defense, any semblance of what might have once been standards have been whittled down lower than dirt, qualifying any day that doesn’t involve an assassination attempt or a shouting match as a win in his book.

That isn’t to say that Sokka isn’t teetering on the verge of yelling until his lungs give out. (Or some less dramatic version of that, because who is he, Zuko? Sheesh.) He’s been balancing on this ever-narrowing sliver of calm, the tight-rope between stoicism and rage. He wonders if this is how Zuko feels most  _ (all)  _ of the time, and honestly, it feels a bit vindicating.

Because this is—and he cannot stress this enough—100%, totally and completely Zuko’s fault.

He’d  _ thought  _ they’d gotten somewhere that night, after their whole fight-kiss-fuck-make-up routine (which they probably shouldn’t have so much practice with).

Instead, Zuko’s good-faith effort to keep Sokka in the know—or, rather, the showy performance of it—persisted for a solid five days before he seemingly deemed the act unworthy of upholding. (He wonders how much of it was for Sokka, and how much was to keep their friends off his back.)

It’s not that Zuko’s lying to him, per se; Sokka would put it firmly in the category of omission which, if Sokka tries hard enough to convince himself of it, isn’t even necessarily purposeful. Should he bring it up to Zuko? Probably. Is it worth the inevitable argument that such a conversation would invoke? Probably not.

Besides, it’s not like Sokka isn’t harboring his own secrets—actually helpful, beneficial-to-Zuko-and-world-peace  secrets, he might add, but secrets nonetheless.

The worst part is that his foray into sleuthing has led him to a dead fucking end. Apparently, Mai’s “source”—whose identity she  _ still  _ won’t tell him—has become uncharacteristically tight-lipped. She’s assured him, in the few times they’ve met since the festival, that she’ll find a way to get her guy talking again, and Sokka very much refuses to read into the implications of such a loaded statement.

It’s strange, the way Mai’s bluntness is beginning to grow on him. Honestly, it’s a nice change of pace when it comes to broody Fire Nation nobles. (And yes, he is obviously referring to Zuko’s aversion to anything resembling an honest conversation.)

To be fair, Zuko’s childhood (read: asshole father who deserves to fucking rot) clearly trained him to keep his cards close to his chest; Sokka just wishes that his unwavering affection could be enough to get Zuko to let him in, even just a little bit.

Then again, Zuko has yet to wholly shut him out completely, and Sokka wonders if that should be enough, if he should be happy with the scrap of trust he’s been given from someone so conditioned not to expect anything but betrayal.

At least he sees Zuko on the daily again, what with the  palace back to its usual hustle and bustle of war crime reparations (Tui and La, that’s a loaded fucking sentence) after a blessedly violence-free end to the Fire Lily Festival.

The flowers themselves had wilted just days after the final ceremonies, and leftover wrinkly petals still floated every so often in the breeze.  He knows their persistence in the face of massive cleanup efforts drives Zuko up the wall, but Sokka finds it admirable, even if they do stain the bottom of his shoes far too often.

(There’s definitely some sort of metaphor tangled up in all of that, but Sokka’s never been one for philosophy; ironically, Zuko’s proclivity for theatricality and stunted poetry is one of the many things Sokka finds so damn endearing about him.)

But just as the fire lilies cling to their strange life after death—they’re corpses, really, a thought which Sokka finds uncomfortably unsettling—there’s a persistent, nagging feeling in the back of his brain that insists something isn’t right.

He runs through a mental checklist when he lies awake at night, easily falling back into the role of a strategist. The framework is simultaneously simple and complex: Zuko sits next to him in meetings, as he always does; Zuko invites him to his chambers almost nightly, for sex-related reasons or simple company, as usual; Zuko works himself to the bone, convinced he has to carry the entire weight of the world on his shoulders, as is custom.

So what, fucking  _ what,  _ is different?

In the end, it takes him an embarrassing amount of time to figure it out, but figure it out he does:

Zuko’s checking the mail.

It wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary if not for the fact that, as Sokka is fairly certain only he is aware of, Zuko is scared of birds. Amendment: Zuko is  _ terrified  _ of them. (Sokka once saw him nearly firebend at a hawk that got too close to him, rambling on about talons and sharp beaks and  _ “for the love of god, how can you not see that those creatures are straight out of nightmares?” _ )

(To this day, Sokka still thinks it’s one of the funniest things he’s ever seen.)

So why, then, did Zuko visit the hawkery every day? Seriously, the man is like clockwork—incredibly suspicious clockwork that apparently miraculously overcame one of his many,  _ many  _ phobias.

The logical conclusion—the  _ only  _ conclusion—is that there’s something being sent that he doesn’t want anyone to see. This, of course, means that Sokka is going to stick his nose directly in it.

He manages to wait until Zuko faces what’s likely an insufferable day of back-to-back meetings before sneaking off to investigate the messenger hawks and the secret correspondences they’re clearly carrying.

The guard in charge of the birds is, to put it lightly, not a fan.

“Lord Zuko sent me to collect the mail,” Sokka says with a forced air of confidence. “You can ask him yourself.”

The guard purses his lips. “Why would he do that?”

“He’s, y’know, busy.”

It’s not technically a lie, but it still feels awkward coming off of his tongue; he has to make a conscious effort to keep his voice from wavering.

“Fine,” the guard eventually huffs. “Today’s letters are on the counter over there, but I haven’t had the chance to sort them yet.”

He nods towards what Sokka sees is an intimidating mountain of parchment. “Well, good thing I’ve got time to go through them.”

“Right…” the guard says slowly, narrowing his eyes.

“Well,” Sokka replies awkwardly, “I’ll just take these and, uh, be on my way.”

He hastily scoops the letters into his arms, and steadfastly avoids the guard’s gaze as he scrambles out of the room.

In a rare stroke of luck, nobody follows him out; the secret throng of palace staff that Sokka’s convinced are constantly waiting in the wings doesn’t even pounce on him.

It’s only minutes later that his good fortune runs out.

He’s stationed himself in Zuko’s office to face an insanely intimidating pile of mail when he realizes he _may_ have gotten in over his head, because holy hell how is he ever going to sort through all of this?

The answer, of course, is persistence, anxiety and sheer spite.

He sighs, takes a deep breath, and gets to work.

* * *

Sokka’s barely made a dent in the pile when he’s hit with the overwhelming desire to give up.

His fingers are covered in paper cuts of varying shapes and sizes, and his eyes feel like they’re going to bleed from all the super duper boring proposals sent by every dignitary under the sun. All this talk of tariffs and legal clauses have blended his thoughts into mush, and the fleeting fantasy of a nap has him all but salivating.

Then he sees a letter addressed to _him_ , and his entire world falls apart.

* * *

He isn’t sure how much time has passed before Zuko finds him. His hands have long gone numb from how tightly he’s gripping the paper, and the elegant characters of Gran-Gran’s handwriting have seared themselves so deeply into his brain that he sees them reflected each time he blinks.

“Sokka, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! You’re not going to  _ believe  _ what I just—hey, what’s wrong?”

Sokka can barely make out Zuko’s concerned face through the tears blurring his vision, can barely hear him through the echoes of  _ “hypothermia”  _ and  _ “resuscitation”  _ and  _ “please, the Tribe needs you.” _

“My dad,” he chokes out, hands beginning to shake. “There was an accident.”

Zuko inhales sharply. “Is he…?”

“No, he’s okay,” Sokka clarifies with a sniffle. “He just got injured on the ice, and I wasn’t there, and…”

His breath hitches, his heart flying up in his throat. He feels close to bursting, and he swears it’s only the warmth of Zuko’s slow embrace that keeps him from shattering at the seams.

“I think I need to go home,” he says into Zuko’s chest.

“Okay.”

“Not forever!” he clarifies. “Just for a little bit.”

“Of course, Sokka,” he says, wrapping his arms more tightly around him. “Whatever you need.”

He sighs, then, pressing his forehead against Sokka’s. “I just wish I could come with you.”

“Me too,” Sokka mumbles, sighing as Zuko begins to run his fingers gently through his hair. “But your people need you here.”

“Where do _you_ need me?”

Sokka frowns, half convinced he’s somehow misheard. “Huh?”

“You said my people need me here,” Zuko explains. “But you’re not just people. You’re…”

He pauses, his hand stilling in Sokka’s hair. It isn’t hard for Sokka to imagine the frustrated look undoubtedly on Zuko’s face, the byproduct of years of repressed vulnerability and an equation of emotions with weakness that he’s still trying to unlearn.

“You’re Sokka,” he eventually settles on. “You’re- you’re my everything.”

Sokka feels fresh tears burning in his eyes and instinctually presses himself closer to Zuko.

“Agni, I care about you so fucking much,” Zuko continues with a bitter chuckle. “Maybe that’s stupid of me, but—“

Aaaand there’s the self-doubt, right on its unfortunate schedule.

Sokka shuts him up with a kiss, quick and chaste and hopefully imbued with every ounce of love and support in Sokka’s body.

“I’ll be okay,” he says softly, brushing a stray tear from Zuko’s cheek; the contentment building in his chest swells when the action isn’t met with a flinch. “I promise.”

“Okay, if- if you’re sure.”

Sokka frowns at the insecurity practically radiating from Zuko’s words.  “Will  _ you  _ be okay?”

“Of course!” The answer is far too hasty to be of any comfort, but Sokka doesn’t have it in him to protest.

Truth be told, it’s been far too long since Sokka felt the arctic chill on his face, sat pressed against his dad’s side as they swapped stories over the crackling fire. The absence of what was once such an integral part of him flares fiercely, and as much as he hates to leave Zuko, he knows in his bones that it’s time for him to go back to his birthplace, at least for a little while.

“Come on,” Zuko says, releasing his hold on Sokka and offering him his hand instead. “I’ll help you set up a safe ride home.”

“You know this—here—you…” Sokka gestures almost wildly with his free arm. “This is my home, too.”

He meets Zuko’s gaze, wide and gold and filled with so much tentative hope that Sokka feels it squeezing his heart.  _ “You’re  _ my home.”

Zuko closes his eyes and tilts his head down so that his forehead once again touches Sokka’s. “I’m going to miss you.”

In that moment, Sokka’s overwhelmed with a foreign sensation that, after an embarrassing and frustrating few seconds of soul searching, he realizes is  _ peace. _

(And Sokka should know by now, should really fucking know, because it’s been beat into his very being more times than he can count, that such contentment can never last. There’s always another shoe waiting for the right moment to drop, a blow waiting for the most inopportune time to kick him when he’s already down.

And yet,  _ and yet,  _ he still lets himself give in to the dreamlike respite, the optimism incongruent with every fiber of his being.)

(So when everything comes crashing down around him, the god’s honest truth is that he only has himself to blame.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i projected my fear of birds onto zuko what about it
> 
> also i’ve had most of this next part written for a while, so i’m really excited to finally get to it!!!


	18. introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kei Lo turns around to see a girl bounding over to their table at the same time Mai lets out a surprised gasp of “Ty Lee?”
> 
> or: boys are stupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for implied sexual content (and Men being Men)

If there happens to be a scientist nearby, Kei Lo would very much like to shake them by shoulders until they explain just how the fuck he’s so tired. He swears all he’s done is catch up on sleep since the end of the Fire Lily Festival, but judging by his constant exhaustion, his body still has yet to get the memo.

Jora says he’s depressed. Kei Lo disagrees; he’s serving his country, after all, and it would be dishonorable to feel anything other than pride.

“It’s okay to feel discouraged,” Jora says over dinner one night, “so long as you keep fighting.”

Kei Lo pokes at his food, pushing it around on the plate. “I feel like I fucked up.”

Jora shakes his head. “What happened at the festival was not your fault.”

“But it is!” Kei Lo protests. “I told Master Ukano that his plan would work.”

“As did the majority of our men,” Jora argues. “No war is won without setbacks.”

Kei Lo forces a bite of rice into his mouth, swallowing mechanically and tasting none of it.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Kei Lo looks up from his lap to see a teasing grin on Jora’s face. “Why don’t you go spend some time with your lady friend?”

Kei Lo hesitates. “I don’t know if I’m up for that right now.”

“What?” Jora chides. “You wore her out already?”

“What?!” Kei Lo feels his face turn red. “No, I didn’t mean— _ugh.”_

He buries his head in his hand, his cheeks warm against his palms.

“We never even, you know... _did_ anything.” He barely manages to choke the words out past his embarrassment.

Sure, he and Mai had made out more than a couple of times; but any time he proposed something else, Mai was quick to shut him down. He’s worked hard to convince himself that it was a matter of lacking privacy rather than missing attraction; that Mai rejected his advances on account of shared bedrooms rather than distaste.

“Huh,” Jora says thoughtfully. “We should find you a nice girl for the night, then.”

Kei Lo swears the heat of the entire sun is radiating from his cheeks at this point, and he’s never wanted to escape from a conversation so badly in his life.

“Actually,” he chokes out, “maybe I _will_ go see Mai.”

He nearly trips in his haste to stand up, legs shaky and uncoordinated as he drops his plate on the counter with a hurried call of “I’ll get that later.”

He pretends not to hear Jora’s laughter as he leaves.

* * *

It’s still early enough in the evening that the flower shop is open when he arrives. He lingers outside for a moment, peeking through the windows to see if he can catch a glimpse of Mai.

Mura catches him lurking and ushers him inside.

Other than Mai’s mother, the store is empty; she waves at him from behind the counter when she spots him.

“Hello there, young man,” she says with a kind smile. “We have missed you these past few weeks.”

She lowers her voice, then, almost conspiratorially when she whispers, “Though my daughter missed you most of all.”

Kei Lo blushes. “I actually came by to see her. Is she here?”

“I’ll go get her,” Mura says, winking. “You just wait right here.”

She leaves him with Mai’s mother, whose smile reminds him achingly of that of his own mom.

“Oh, uh, while I’m here, could I also get some flowers?”

“Of course,” Mai’s mother replies. “Sunflowers are Mai’s favorite.”

Kei Lo blushes. “I’ll take some of those, then.”

Mai’s mother smiles as she puts together a bouquet.

“Here,” she says. “On the house.”

Kei Lo’s eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. My daughter would do well with a gentleman like you.”

He’s barely taken the flowers from her when Mai appears at the bottom of the stairs.

“My aunt said you were looking for me?”

Kei Lo’s breath catches in his throat; Agni, Mai is _gorgeous._

“Uh, yeah,” he stammers. “I was thinking we could go get some, uh, tea or something?”

For a moment, Kei Lo swears Mai’s eyes narrow, but any expression of distrust is gone by the next time he blinks.

“Oh!” he adds. “And I got these for you.”

He holds out the bouquet, praying the slight tremble of his hand isn’t too obvious. 

“They’re beautiful,” Mai says as she takes them.

She spends a moment admiring the flowers, then gives Kei Lo a small smile. “Let me put these upstairs, and then we can go.”

He tries not to stare too overtly as she climbs back up the stairs to the apartment he still has yet to see the inside of. (If Mura’s raised eyebrows are any indication, he fails spectacularly.)

“Okay,” Mai says as she reappears. “Shall we?”

She offers him her hand, which he eagerly takes. It’s warm and soft, just as he remembers it being.

“Don’t keep her out too late, young man,” Mai’s mother orders with a grin. 

Kei Lo smirks as Mai groans at his side. “Of course.”

He dips into a quick bow, then tugs Mai out the door.

Once they’re far enough away from the not-so-subtly prying eyes of Mai’s family, Kei Lo pulls her in for a kiss.

“I missed you,” he says when they break apart.

“Yeah?” Mai asks wryly. “Because I’m pretty sure _you’re_ the one who ghosted _me_.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “Things have just been crazy.”

Mai’s features soften. “Why don’t we go get something to drink, and then you can tell me all about it?”

* * *

It’s late enough that the tea shop is mostly empty when they arrive. They snag a corner table—perfect for avoiding eavesdroppers—and Kei Lo, gentleman that he is, orders and pays for both of their drinks.

“So,” Mai says after a long sip, “want to explain what’s been going on with you?”

Kei Lo sighs and resists the urge to hang his head. “There’s been a lot happening at work.”

“At the palace?” Mai asks. “Or with the Society?”

She whispers the last part, a fact for which Kei Lo is immensely grateful.

“Both,” he admits.

“Come on. You can talk to me.”

He hesitates for a moment, but any resolve crumbles when Mai reaches across the table and gently takes his hands.

“There was a plan at the Fire Lily Festival,” he says in a rush. “It...didn’t work out.”

Mai frowns. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

“We were trying to ruin the truce with the Earth Kingdom. Then we could stop with all the Harmony Restoration bullshit.”

Mai’s eyes widen for a moment, and the reaction is somehow both frantic and underwhelmed. “I’m sorry it fell through.”

“Yeah,” Kei Lo huffs bitterly. “Me too.”

“What now, then? I know you, and you’re not a quitter.”

Kei Lo feels some of his confidence begin to return to him. “You’re right.”

Mai chuckles and gives his hands another squeeze. “I usually am.”

They lapse into a brief silence, their fingers slowly unlinking and winding their way around their teacups.

“You know,” Mai says after taking a sip, “you never answered my question.”

“Sorry,” Kei Lo mumbles, his face heating up. “I was a little distracted by your eyes.”

Mai’s lips part slightly, a faint blush creeping up her neck that he so badly wants to kiss. He thinks he might have done so then and there—other patrons and employees be damned—but he’s distracted by the high-pitched squeal of Mai’s name coming from behind him.

He turns around to see a girl bounding over to their table at the same time Mai lets out a surprised gasp of “Ty Lee?”

The girl—Ty Lee, he presumes—yanks Mai up to her feet and wraps her in a crushing hug. Mai stiffens, and awkwardly pats Ty Lee on the back of her blindingly pink shirt until she lets go.

It’s only then that she seems to notice Kei Lo’s presence.

“Hi!” she says brightly, holding out her hand. “I’m Ty Lee.”

“Kei Lo,” he replies as he takes it. “I’m Mai’s boyfriend.”

He realizes the second the words are out of his mouth that it maybe wasn’t the best decision on his part. They’d never officially discussed labels, but come on—they kissed, they held hands, they went on literal dates. If this _isn’t_ a relationship, Kei Lo honestly doesn’t know what is.

“I see,” Ty Lee says slowly, her gaze darting over to Mai momentarily. “I don’t think Mai’s mentioned you.”

He swears her grip tightens for a second before she releases his hand, crushing his fingers together with a strength seemingly impossible for someone so petite to possess.

“Sorry,” Mai replies, ducking her head. “There’s only so much I can say in letters.”

“I take you’re not from around here?” Kei Lo asks.

Ty Lee shakes her head. “I actually live on—“

“The Jang Hui River,” Mai finishes for her, “in one of the floating cities.”

Kei Lo barely notices the strange exchange of looks between the two girls, far too focused on the singular common ground in his grasp.

“I’m not from the capital either,” he says. “And I actually passed Jang Hui on the way here from Hira’a.”

Ty Lee’s eyes widen ever-so-slightly at this.

“You know the place?”

“I’ve never been, but Z—“ there’s a dull thumping sound, and she pauses with an annoyed grunt—“one of my friends’ family lives there.”

“Cool…” At some point during his blundering path to play nice with Ty Lee, the energy in the teashop had shifted into something uncomfortably tense.

Mai stands abruptly, tugging Ty Lee up beside her. “Would you excuse us for a minute?”

Kei Lo frowns. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. Just some girl problems.”

He shudders when the meaning of her words sinks in. “Yeah, I’ll just, uh, wait here.”

Mai nods once, then pulls Ty Lee towards the bathroom.

Kei Lo thrums his fingers on the table for what feels like an eternity. The tea has grown cold by the time the girls return, and he has half a mind to ask what took so long before remembering that the answer will definitely be something gross.

“Sorry, babe,” Mai says, “but I think I’m going to have Ty Lee take me back to my aunt’s. My you-know-what is really bad.”

“I can walk you back,” Kei Lo bristles.

“Do you want to come with us to the apothecary for supplies on the way? My flow is way heavier than usual.”

Kei Lo blanches. “No, that’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Mai smirks. “Sure. Get home safe, babe.”

She plants a quick kiss on his cheek before ushering him out the door. When he looks back over his shoulder, he sees Ty Lee staring at him, something unreadable in her expression.

His face thrums with ripples of residual heat from Mai’s lips, and he can’t help the smile that bubbles to the surface.

It seems, for once, that things may actually be going his way. Yeah, he could get used to this.

* * *

“‘Babe?’ Seriously?”

Mai turns to glower at Ty Lee once she’s certain Kei Lo’s silhouette has faded into the distance. “It got him to leave, didn’t it?”

Ty Lee crosses her arms. “I don’t like this.”

Mai sighs; this is _not_ a conversation she thought she’d be having tonight. “I promise I’ll explain, just- not here.”

Ty Lee looks skeptical, but accepts Mai’s offer to walk her home on the condition that she spills the beans—every last one of them.

After carefully checking to ensure they aren’t being followed, Mai pulls Ty Lee off into one of the empty alcoves lining a nearby side-street.

“So,” Ty Lee prompts. “Kei Lo.”

Mai glances up at the sky, praying Agni gives her the strength to crack open the very can of worms she’s worked so hard to weld shut.

“He started coming to the flower shop a few months ago,” she begins. “Apparently, he works in the palace, and since Sokka’s being such an asshole, I thought he’d give me some information if I acted clueless about politics.”

“Right…”

Mai bristles at the sheer amount of patronizing energy packed into the single word. “Well, it turns out he’s also working for my dad in his secret group of nutjobs trying to overthrow Zuko.”

It’s hard to tell by the light of the street lamps, but Mai swears Ty Lee goes white as a sheet.

“That’s why I have to pretend I— _we—_ hate Zuko, too. It’s not...ideal,” she admits, “but I’ve been getting Kei Lo to tell me about the New Ozai Society’s plans by going out with him.”

“You mean by leading him on?”

Mai startles at the sudden vitriol in Ty Lee’s voice.

“It’s not a big deal,” she replies tightly. “It’s for a good cause.”

“It’s like you’re selling your soul!”

Mai rolls her eyes. “As if.”

Ty Lee frowns, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. “I just think there are better ways to help Zuko that don’t involve being so fake.”

It hits her, then, why Ty Lee is so invested in this singular, wholly unremarkable boy: she’s _jealous._

“He’s a patsy. You _know_ that’s not my type.”

“Do I?”

 _Yes,_ Mai wants to scream. _Because my type is you!_

Instead, she remains silent until Ty Lee eventually asks Mai to walk her back to the inn she’s staying at. It’s only when they’re half a block from the doors that Mai finds her voice again.

“I don’t actually like him like that,” she says, softer this time.

(Looking at Ty Lee’s eyes, the contours of her brows and the light freckles dusting her nose, Mai thinks she really is telling the truth this time.)

Ty Lee seems unconvinced. “It’s okay if you do. He’s cute, I guess, and his aura isn’t terrible…”

She trails off when Mai shyly reaches out to take her hand, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.

“I don’t like him,” Mai repeats. “I’m serious.”

Her heart jumps when Ty Lee intertwines their fingers and gently squeezes.

“Okay,” she says with a soft smile. “Would you maybe want to come inside?”

Mai swears her chest is about to burst, and she doesn’t trust her heart not to leap straight out of her body if she tries to piece together an answer. Instead, she pulls Ty Lee in for a kiss.

From the way Mai feels Ty Lee smile against her lips, she’s pretty sure she got the message.

* * *

Ty Lee’s cheek is soft where it rests against Mai’s bare shoulder, a mixture of heat and contentment seeping into her bones. She inhales deeply, lungs basking in the intimate comfort and familiarity of a lifetime of friendship (and now, Mai supposes, more-than-friendship).

“Ty Lee,” Mai says, sighing as she runs her fingers through the hair she’d managed to free from Ty Lee’s ponytail. “Why are you really here?”

Ty Lee’s hand is warm on her hip as she pushes herself upward, her grey eyes meeting Mai’s.

“Sokka called us here,” she explains, voice low. “He has to go back to the South Pole and wanted Zuko to be safe.”

“Zuko wouldn’t know ‘safe’ if it bit him in the ass.”

Ty Lee chuckles. “You’re not wrong.”

Her face falls, then. “He...didn’t really take it well.”

Mai makes a questioning hum.

“Zuko,” she clarifies. “He didn’t know we were coming, and according to one of the other warriors, he kind of lost it when he found out.”

Mai sighs. “Of course Sokka didn’t tell him.”

“They’re kind of bad at this whole communicating thing, huh?” Ty Lee muses. 

“They’re boys,” Mai replies. “What do you expect?”

Ty Lee giggles, pressing her cheek against Mai’s bare shoulder and sending a wave of warmth through her.

“I take it Sokka also told you about the New Ozai Society?”

“Yeah,” Ty Lee sighs. “He seemed really worried.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Hey,” Ty Lee says, gently cupping Mai’s cheek. “I’m not going to let anything happen to Zuko.”

The firmness in Ty Lee’s eyes speaks the words neither she nor Mai can voice, the ones they silently agreed upon in the darkness of the Boiling Rock:

_“I won’t make the same mistake again.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did someone say soft gays


	19. goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The ship is ready for departure,” Taizin announces. “We must leave soon in order to reach the Earth Kingdom port before the storm arrives.”
> 
> or: one bi leaveth, another taketh his place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy almost-thanksgiving! please stay safe!
> 
> cw for implied sexual content

He’s said it before, and he’ll say it again: Momo is an annoying little shit.

Sokka doesn’t _care_ if the bastard has an objectively fashionable kimono on, or even if his big-ass eyes hold all the secrets to the universe; nothing, and he means _nothing_ , will change the fact that the stupid fucking lemur is the bane of his existence.

He’s _way_ too close to Sokka’s body for comfort, and the rippling fabric on his robe slaps at Sokka’s smooth, luscious skin. ( _That’s right,_ he thinks smugly. _This guy knows how to moisturize.)_

“Go away,” he grumbles, waving his hand in what he _thought_ was a universal _“shoo!”_ gesture.

Apparently, it’s not as translatable as he hoped, because Momo refuses to relent.

“Wake up, idiot,” he chitters.

Sokka groans. “Five more minutes, Momo.”

“Momo?”

The lemur sounds offended, which is wholly uncalled for. Sure, his voice is a bit higher-pitched than it was when he and Appa were facing off in their super-mega cactus brawl; but Sokka is just being a gentleman here and not pointing it out!

“Alright, ‘gentleman’,” Momo snorts. “Get your ass up before I drag you out of bed.”

“Your tiny arms aren’t strong enough to…” Sokka yawns, the motion jarring his brain.

He blinks his eyes open slowly, half-baked images of an unnaturally ripped Momo fading with the last dregs of sleep. “...do that?”

“You with me now?”

Sokka jolts at the voice that most certainly does not belong to Momo _(wait, why is he even considering that?)_ literal inches from his face.

Then he recognizes the beautiful, angelic figure standing at his bedside.

“Suki!” he shouts, immediately shooting up and flinging his arms around her. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

Suki raises a brow. “You asked me to come.”

“Well, yeah…”

Suki rolls her eyes and offers him a friendly squeeze (that may or may not almost break a few of Sokka’s ribs) before pulling back.

“It’s really good to see you,” she says as she straightens her uniform.

It’s only then that Sokka registers that Suki is in full Kyoshi Warrior regalia while he’s...well, while he’s half-naked.

“Look away!” he yelps, blushing furiously.

Suki sighs but does as he asks; it isn’t hard for Sokka to conjure the eye-roll she’s definitely doing as he slips on the nearest shirt he can find.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says over her shoulder. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

 _“Suki,”_ he gasps, mockingly scandalized. “I know everyone wants a piece of this, but I have a _boyfriend!”_

Suki scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself. Now, can I _please_ turn around?”

“If you must,” Sokka sighs.

“Kyoshi help me,” Suki mutters as she spins to face him. “You’re such a drama queen.”

Sokka plants his hands on his (no longer bare) hips. “And?”

 _“And,”_ she replies, “you’re a pain in my ass.”

Her overzealous look of frustration—because yes, she is definitely as ridiculous as he is—softens into something _(dare he say it?)_ nice.

“I’ve missed you, though.”

Sokka smiles. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“Needy,” she teases.

“What I _need,”_ Sokka corrects, “is to figure out how to pack.”

Suki gives a cursory glance around his room in all of its clothing-strewn, upturned glory. “That’s an understatement.”

Sokka huffs, dragging himself out of bed and picking up his half-packed travel bag. “So you’ll help me?”

“Sorry, I don’t remember offering.”

 _“Suki,”_ Sokka groans. “Please?”

“Fine.”

Sokka grins; moose-lion-cub eyes for the win!

They chat while they pack, their easy conversation interrupted every so often when Sokka needs to clarify things because wait _, how many pairs of underwear should he bring?_

He learns that Kyoshi Island is no longer on fire (awesome), and that Suki is dating another warrior who apparently has great biceps (awesomer); she had to leave said girlfriend at home, though (less awesome), _but_ she’s going to be in charge of training the younger warriors while Suki’s away (awesome once again)!

“What about you?” she asks as she tosses him a rolled-up pair of socks. “How are things with Zuko?”

Sokka winces. “They’re...okay.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Something like that.”

Suki frowns, dropping whatever article of clothing she was holding—all Sokka knows is that it’s blue, which narrows it down by approximately nothing—and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

_(“How could you go behind my back like this?”_

_“I’m just trying to look out for you!”_

_“You don’t think I can take care of myself?”_

_“Yes. No. I don’t know.”_

_“I’m leaving.”)_

(The words “ _please don’t go”_ never make it past Sokka’s lips.)

“Not really.”

Suki sighs. “Well, I’m here for you if you need it.”

Sokka wants to take the opportunity to drop it, except this is _Suki_ —his gorgeous, bestest, most badass friend—and god, he really _does_ want to vent.

“I’m pretty sure Zuko hates me.”

Suki just stares at him, her disbelief evident.

“I’m serious!” he adds. “All he does is sulk and avoid me.”

“Is that not what you’re doing right now?”

“I’m _brooding,”_ Sokka corrects. “There’s a difference.”

Suki mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _“boys.”_

 _“And,”_ Sokka continues vehemently, “if he didn’t hate me, why isn’t he here?”

“Well…” Suki trails off, something conspiratory in her expression. “I _may_ have seen him on my way over.”

Sokka can’t help the way he perks up at this. “Did he say anything?”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell you.”

Sokka gapes. “But—“

“I pinky-promised,” Suki continues. “But...he _may_ be coming by soon.”

Her words probably shouldn’t make Sokka feel such a deep sense of longing; he’s never been one for logic, though.

“When?”

Suki purses her lips. “Right about…” She pauses at the sharp rap of knuckles against the door. “Now.”

Sokka’s jaw somehow manages to drop further. “How do you _do_ that?”

“A girl has her ways.” She smirks as the door creaks open just a crack. “Looks like that’s my cue.”

She offers Sokka a little wave as she exits, leaving Zuko to stand nervously in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, shifting a parcel in his arms.

“Hey,” Sokka replies. “What’s that?”

Zuko looks adorably confused when he glances down, seemingly having forgotten he was carrying anything to begin with.

“Oh, it’s, uh, some sticky buns. For your trip.” 

He shuts the door with a swift backwards kick, then awkwardly holds the package out. Sokka inhales deeply, his lungs filling with the sweet scents of cinnamon and vanilla.

“You’re amazing,” Sokka says, taking the opportunity of the closed door to plant a smooch on Zuko’s unscarred cheek as he eases the food out of his hands. “You know that?”

“I mean, they’re your favorite,” Zuko replies, gesturing to the pastries as though any good deed needs some sort of explanation. “And I thought, since the journey is, uh, long, and...yeah.”

Sokka carefully slides the container into his bag, positioning it in what he hopes is the least likely angle to spill sugar all over his belongings (though if some happened to get on the stack of reports he’s begrudgingly packed, he wouldn’t be one to complain).

“Thank you,” he repeats, heart soaring at the fierce blush crawling up Zuko’s neck.

He smirks when his boyfriend looks away, though his smugness at Zuko’s neverending (yet highly endearing) awkwardness fades into confusion when Zuko turns and locks the door behind them.

“Uh, babe? I kind of need to be able to leave.”

“Actually,” Zuko replies, “I’d say you have about…”

He pauses, then, tilting his head slightly to the side in what Sokka has come to recognize as the checking of his weird inner sundial.

“...twenty minutes before you have to go anywhere.”

“Oh?” Sokka teases. “And what do you propose we do until then?”

Zuko steps into his space again, tucking his face into the side of Sokka’s neck to press warm, open-mouthed kisses against his skin.

“I think you should lay down,” he whispers, “and let me give you the rest of your going-away present.”

* * *

Sokka is decidedly much more relaxed when he reaches the dock. His lips are tingling with the aftershock of crushing kisses, the subtle taste of himself on Zuko’s tongue lingering in his mouth. He feels the bruises forming on his chest pulse in time with his heartbeat, and he’s pretty sure from the looks Suki keeps shooting him that he appears more than a little disheveled.

Zuko follows a few steps behind him, unfairly less debauched despite Sokka’s best efforts. He smiles each time Sokka glances over his shoulder at him, and Sokka can’t stop his overzealous brain from wandering to the oh-so-wonderful memory of those same lips wrapped around his—

 _No,_ he scolds his brain. _Bad Sokka. Not now._

(All it takes is one look at Taizin’s ugly mug—the asshole is, unfortunately, traveling with Sokka on the first leg of his journey—at Zuko’s side to kill any less-than-savory thoughts.)

They reach the water far too soon. It hits him, then, that he’s really leaving. The knowledge is bittersweet: yes, he’s seeing his ( _injured, lonely)_ dad and his tribe for the first time in months; unfortunately, it’s at the expense of the life he’s _(slowly, lovingly)_ built in Caldera.

“You’ll be back before you know it,” Zuko says over the lapping of the waves. “I mean, if you want to be.”

Sokka swears this man is going to drive him insane.

“Of course I’m coming back.” He pulls Zuko in for a hug—a super macho, super straight friend-hug—and whispers into his right ear, “I’ll always come back to you.”

And _wow,_ that was _not_ what he meant to say, but Tui and La if it isn’t true. (He can feel the literal heat radiating from Zuko’s cheeks at his admission, warm and burning like the blood rushing through his veins.)

“I’m going to miss you,” Zuko says, the admission surprisingly unrestrained.

Sokka squeezes him once more before letting go. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“You’ll stay safe?”

“I should be asking _you_ that.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Suki cuts in. “I’ll make sure to keep him out of trouble.”

Sokka’s ready to say a witty response—probably something along the lines of Zuko being a literal danger magnet—but Taizin, buzzkill that he is, clears his throat.

“The ship is ready for departure,” he announces. “We must leave soon in order to reach the Earth Kingdom port before the storm arrives.”

Sokka isn’t exactly itching to go back to the Earth Kingdom— _especially_ to a port uncomfortably close to the godforsaken Serpent’s Pass—yet it’s a necessary evil if he wants to avoid rolling up to the South Pole in a Fire Nation vessel not unlike the one Zuko barged in on years ago.

“Right,” he says, shifting his bag on his shoulder. “I guess this is it, then.”

Zuko nods. “Let me know when you get there safely.”

“Of course.”

Sokka offers him a quick bow for the sake of formalities—not nearly low enough, if Taizin’s intense side-eye is any indication—before turning and heading up the gangplank.

He stays outside even after he boards, waving to the ever-shrinking figures of his friends (well, friend and more-than-friend) on the shore until they fade into the distance.

* * *

Sokka must be more exhausted than he realizes, because he spends the first few days at sea passed out in bed. To be fair, it’s a _very_ comfortable bed. Like, probably-stuffed-with-the-fur-of-an-endangered-species comfortable. It’s an injustice, really, that such a marvel is sequestered on a ship—a very nice ship, he might add, but one typically inhabited by snobby nobles who are clearly incapable of appreciating such a wonder.

He has to hand it to Taizin; for being a stick in the mud, he sure knows how to help a guy travel in luxury. Unfortunately, said stick in the mud is also still on the boat (which, _duh,_ he organized this), and Sokka despises every second he has to see his stupid face. (Admittedly, it isn’t that often, because the ship is equipped with a beautiful thing called room service.)

Sokka’s quarters are clearly meant for someone far more important than he, and it fills him with endless amusement to imagine how many Fire Nation nobles would go into cardiac arrest if they found out a Water Tribe “savage” was sleeping in their bed. Even better, he doubts that even _Hahn_ has this level of accomodations when he fucks off to the Northern Water Tribe (far less frequently than Sokka would like), so _ha,_ take _that,_ asshole.

Now that he’s done catching up on a lifetime’s worth of sleep, Sokka figures he might as well do some exploring. The deck is blessedly empty, the only sounds the whirring of the breeze and the slapping of waves against the hull. It’s peaceful, and the misty spray of saltwater is a familiar comfort.

He can just barely make out the shadow of land on the horizon, and with the ship’s steam-powered engine, he estimates they’ll reach the shore by the day’s end. It’s been a minute since he’s stepped foot in the Earth Kingdom, and he wonders if he’ll have time to make a quick shopping detour before his next ship leaves.

(Though the thought gives him a stomachache, he’s something of a celebrity in his tribe—so if he asks the captain to wait, they’ll probably do just that. Then again, he doesn’t think he’d survive the embarrassment if it turns out the town doesn’t even _have_ any shopping.)

Unfortunately, they still hit the tail-end of the storm before port, meaning Sokka is trapped in his chambers as the boat lurches around him. (It reminds him a bit too much of a nightmare of a fishing job, and he isn’t sure if it’s the memory of it or the fierce rocking of the boat that brings bile to his throat.)

He sighs. What to do, what to do…

His brain lands on one of his newly acquired hobbies: drowning himself in unending anxiety. Because what if he arrives too late? What if his dad’s condition has gotten worse? What if the tribe—or, worse, his _family—_ hates him for being away for so long?

He decides this calls for a more advanced form of self-torture, since that’s apparently who he is as a person now:

He’s going to reread Gran-Gran’s letter.

He shuffles through his bag, setting the mostly-eaten sticky buns on the bedside counter and tossing a lovely combination of clean and dirty clothes on the ground.

_Fuck, where is it?_

You know what? Screw it.

He turns the bag upside down and dumps its contents onto the bed (which is a problem for Future Sokka). An assortment of wrinkled shirts, writing utensils and crumbs lands on the blankets, and _yes,_ he is definitely going to brush all of this crap onto the floor when he’s done because he’s classy like that.

Then, just as his hands are beginning to cramp from shaking the bag so vigorously, a piece of parchment floats down to his feet. _Score!_

He tosses the rest of his stuff aside as he tears it open; if he wasn’t so preoccupied with the whole pity party schtick he has going on, he may have noticed how odd it is that the scroll has been resealed.

That fun little fact hits him like a punch in the gut when he stares down at handwriting that is very much _not_ Gran-Gran’s.

The first row of characters he sees—something about ostrich-horses?—has an eerily familiar style of calligraphy. Huh. It almost looks like Zuko’s, all sharp lines and crisp edges.

Shit, did he accidentally take a letter that Zuko meant to send? He hopes his mistake isn’t going to ignite some sort of animal-related trade war, because that would be _super_ embarrassing.

He unfurls the rest of the scroll, steeling himself for the revelation of just how many negotiations he’s accidentally thrown a wrench in, but…

But the letter isn’t from Zuko. No, it’s addressed _to_ him. And unless he’s doing some weird therapy exercise to deal with his mountain of childhood trauma—and wow, wouldn’t _that_ be a curveball—there’s only one person who could possibly be behind this.

His eyes burn as he reads the words, over and over again until they’re seared into his retinas, the ground shuddering and shifting in the restless waves beneath his feet.

_“Dear Zuzu…”_


	20. frostbite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka doesn’t know what’s worse: the audacity of Azula to try so blatantly to manipulate Zuko into trusting her, or the fact that his boyfriend is actively falling for it.
> 
> or: things are changing, for better or for worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild violence

Sokka doesn’t know what’s worse: the audacity of Azula to try so blatantly to manipulate Zuko into trusting her, or the fact that his boyfriend is actively falling for it. Amendment: his boyfriend is actively falling for it and _hiding it._

It’s not exactly hard to determine that the answer to his morbid question is the latter. (The note’s implications—that Zuko has been secretly visiting Azula for weeks—are not lost on him.)

He’d tossed the letter overboard in a fit of anger, the swirling wind of the storm carrying it far, far away. He’d say it was poetic justice, but he feels anything but vindicated.

He can’t do anything but fume and brood for the remainder of the journey, not even when the captain of the Water Tribe ship tries to wring a war story out of him with the conviction of a komodo-rhino. She’d even offered to share an embarrassing memory of Sokka’s father—something about ice fishing and double dares—in exchange.

Normally, Sokka would be all over it, because teasing his dad and talking about his adventures with Team Avatar (and, well, just plain talking in general) are some of his favorite pastimes; now, he’s too absorbed in the aforementioned angst to muster more than the most perfunctory of words.

He only rises from his bitter stupor when the South Pole comes into view on the horizon. It fills him with an intense longing deep within his chest, the bitter tang of salt in the frigid air suddenly more pronounced.

He’s really here. He’s really home.

The ship has barely docked before Sokka is scrambling off of it with an aborted ‘thanks.’ His boots—which he’d opted to change into because he’s prepared like that—sink into the snow as he heads towards the cluster of igloos, fighting against the way the ground seems determined to trap his feet in place.

He nearly trips when he spots a familiar figure waving at him, a small mass of blue and grey and _warmth._

“Gran-Gran!” he shouts over the wind.

He pushes his legs to go faster, _faster,_ until he’s finally close enough to wrap her in his arms. He can’t bring himself to clutch her as tightly as he wants—she _is_ old and brittle (which she’ll deny to the grave), after all—but she has no such qualms.

For such a small woman, she sure is mighty.

He’s nearly suffocating by the time she releases him, though she keeps her hands wrapped tightly around his biceps.

“Look at you,” she says, giving him a fond once-over. “All grown up.”

 _“Gran-Gran,”_ Sokka whines, weaseling out of her grip. “I’m eighteen, not forty.”

“That’s still old in my book.”

“I bet you don’t call _Aang_ old, and he’s 114!”

“Well, I haven’t known him since he was in diapers, have I?”

He blushes as Gran-Gran pinches his cheek. “Seriously?”

“You were such a little troublemaker. Why, I still remember the time you tried to catch a polar bear-dog with nothing but—“

 _“Gran-Gran,”_ Sokka interrupts with another groan.

Gran-Gran’s face—far too smug for such a sweet old lady—softens. “I’m glad you’re home. I know you’re off changing the world, but we’ve missed you here.”

“It’s good to be back,” Sokka replies. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

Gran-Gran smiles, but there’s something sad in her eyes. “Why don’t we go see your father?”

His father. The real reason he’s here. Right. 

He follows Gran-Gran towards the village, footsteps sinking in the heavy snow. He’s afraid to ask what condition his dad is in, but considering the way they’re headed to the igloo Sokka grew up in rather than that of the healers seems promising.

Gran-Gran ducks inside without preamble once they reach it, leaving Sokka to awkwardly follow her. Should they have knocked? What’s the sort of etiquette for this thing?

“I’ve brought someone to see you, Hakoda,” he hears Gran-Gran say.

“Hopefully not another suitor,” Dad jokes in response.

His voice is weaker than usual, but it’s still so unmistakably _his_ and Sokka can’t hold back any longer.

“Hi, Dad,” he says, a grin already tugging at the corners of his lips.

His expression falters when he sees the state his father’s in. It’s not the bags under his eyes or the yellowing bruises smattering the exposed top of his exposed chest; Sokka has been dealing with war and violence for far too long to not be accustomed to such effects.

No, what does him in in the end is the bandaged stump where his dad’s left arm used to be.

(Sokka’s heard stories about severe cases of frostbite, ones where the damage was so extensive that the only hope of avoiding infection was amputation. It still doesn’t prepare him for the sight in front of him.)

He can see the way his dad shrinks under the involuntary scrutiny, a shame and unease not dissimilar to the one Zuko tries (and fails) to hide whenever someone’s gaze lingers too long on his scar.

Sokka forces the smile back onto his face and shoves all thoughts of Zuko into the far corner of his mind.

It’s worth it for the grateful look of relief his dad gives him.

“Hello, son.”

* * *

“Hello, brother.”

Zuko—awkward, blundering fool that he is—freezes where he’s halfway onto the visitation couch, staring at Azula with wide eyes. “Hey.”

“I didn’t realize you were coming.”

“Oh, uh, do you want me to leave? I know you didn’t write, but I just sort of assumed since it was Sunday...”

“I wrote you a letter,” Azula says, the beginnings of a frown forming on her lips. _“You_ just didn’t reply.”

She doesn’t mention the hours she spent rereading the message where she’d drafted it in her journal. She doesn’t mention the days she spent wondering what she’d done wrong, because _surely_ her brother knew she was only teasing. Why, her remarks were practically tame by her standards!

No, she simply watches with a critical gaze as her brother blinks at her in confusion.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did,” she argues coolly. “See, I have it all written down here.”

She holds up her journal, sliding it back into her pocket when Zuko appears to reach for it.

“Ah ah,” she tuts. “I’m not letting you go through my private thoughts, thank you very much.”

She sees Zuko clench his fists at his sides as he shifts his weight back onto the cushion. “Right.”

Ty Lee, who’d hurriedly explained upon her arrival that she was in the capital for the foreseeable future for reasons which Azula was deemed unworthy of being privy to, must sense the tension steadily building in the room, because she takes that moment to jump into the conversation. “Could you tell us what it was about?”

“It was nothing,” Azula replies. “Completely trivial, really.”

Ty Lee pouts, and Azula isn’t sure why she cares so much, but a part of her _hates_ seeing that expression on her friend’s face.

(Her _friend’s?_ Are they friends again?)

(Azula quietly hopes so.)

“It was just about Pabu,” she says as nonchalantly as possible.

“Her ostrich-horse,” Zuko clarifies at Mai and Ty Lee’s looks of confusion. “She sends me updates on him.”

“Zuzu’s always had a soft spot for animals.”

He blushes at that, rubbing at the back of his neck and not gratifying Azula’s accusation with an answer.

“She’s not wrong,” Mai teases. “I swear he spends more time with those stupid turtle-ducks than any of his actual friends.”

“Hey!” Zuko protests.

“How are they?” The words leave Azula’s mouth in a rush, unprocessed and unbidden. “The turtle-ducks, I mean.”

She forces herself not to give in to her instinct to look away, to avoid the embarrassment her uncharacteristic vulnerability has surely wrought.

“They’re good,” Zuko says softly. “The chicks should be hatching soon.”

Azula nods; it’s the only response she can muster.

“Maybe you can come visit them some time.”

Her head snaps up at Zuko’s offer, eyes immediately narrowing in suspicion. It has to be a trap, it has to; because Azula spent her early years barred from the pond, from her mother’s affection, and the world is far too cruel to reverse such a banishment.

(But her brother had overcome his, had he not?)

“I think,” she says when she eventually finds her voice, “I’d like that.”

* * *

It’s only fitting, in a harshly ironic sort of way, that Zuko faces an assassination attempt after the first good day he’s had in the week since Sokka’s departure.

He’s already been sleeping like shit—well, more like shit than usual, if that’s even possible—and any foray into unconsciousness is hardly restful. He tosses and turns, his nightmares shuffling through his greatest hits; one impressive night, he manages to relive each and every time his father tried to kill him, with an added bonus of hurting Sokka to spice it up. (Agni, he misses him so fucking much.)

So, all things considered, it isn’t exactly surprising that he’s aware enough to hear the nearly-silent footsteps of someone creeping through his chambers.

He’s up in an instant, raising his arms and shifting into a bending stance.

“Show yourself!” he shouts.

The assailant shows themself, alright—with a ball and chain.

Zuko ducks before the weapon can make contact, feinting and diving for his dao; fire wouldn’t exactly be useful in fighting steel, other than superheating it and inevitably biting Zuko in the ass.

They exchange blows in a delicate, dangerous dance. The assassin manages to land a lucky hit on Zuko’s side, flesh stinging as barbs slice through it. He feels the wet warmth of blood pooling beneath his shirt. Instinct screams at him to apply pressure to the wound, but the internal reminder of the two-handed nature of the weapons standing between him and his grave wails far more loudly in his brain.

He grits his teeth against the waves of pain pulsing through his body, urging himself to be faster, stronger, _better._

He’s panting by the time he manages to disarm the assassin, slamming them against the wall before they can retaliate. He summons a flame to one of his hands to illuminate the murderous glare of a girl who had to be no older than sixteen. She shrinks back at the proximity of his fire, and he redirects it to the lanterns in the sconces of the walls with a wince.

(He knows, after all, the terrifying heat of flames flickering near his face far too intimately.)

Though her posture relaxes ever-so-slightly, the girl continues to bare her teeth at him and struggle against his grip.

“Let go of me!” she snarls.

There’s a manic spark in her eyes, an angry power in the heaving of her breaths. He wishes he had actual restraints to use on her, but his guards have yet to arrive.

He realizes the nauseating truth, then, because if the guards still hadn’t entered despite all the commotion...

(He feels shameful, awful relief at the knowledge that Suki and Ty Lee weren’t on duty.)

He fists clench tighter. “Convince me not to take your life.”

“Go ahead,” the girl spits. “My family has been loyal to yours for generations. By getting rid of me, you would simply complete your betrayal!”

That...is _not_ what he expected. “Your family?”

“My father is the mayor of Yu Dao.”

“Yu Dao…” Zuko sounds the words out slowly, wracking his brain as to why it sounds so infuriatingly familiar. “You mean the first Fire Nation colony?”

“Yes,” the assassin replies bitterly. “It’s my home, and now you and the Avatar are going to destroy it with your precious Harmony Restoration Movement!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he snaps, flames once again rising to his hands. “Why can’t you colonials get it through your thick fucking skulls that the Harmony Restoration Movement is a means to _peace_?”

“Peace for who? My family has lived there for generations! We have as much a right to be there as anyone else!”

“Yu Dao was taken from the Earth Kingdom,” Zuko retorts. “It’s their territory.”

The assassin’s eyes, pure Fire Nation gold, narrow.

“You’re a Fire Nation citizen,” he continues, meeting her glare with one of his own. “You should live in the Fire Nation, not on our stolen land!”

“You’re right, Fire Lord; I _am_ a Fire Nation citizen. And I’ll tell you this—your _father_ would never have let the Avatar and the Earth King bully him into something so obviously bad for his own people!”

“My father?” Zuko asks, the words momentarily too big for his mouth before their meaning jolts him back into action. _“I’m not my father!”_

Sparks crackle on his tongue, burning like the fury in his veins as he pins the assassin back against the wall.

“No,” she retorts, “you’re not. Fire Lord Ozai had many faults, but he was never a coward.”

His grip on her unconsciously loosens, and she pushes him back a few steps. “He was never a _traitor.”_

“You’ll regret saying that.”

He summons his fire back to his fists, but when he starts to advance on her, the ground locks him in place.

“What the hell?” he snarls, trying to dislodge himself to no avail. “You’re an earthbender?”

The girl nods, her lips curling into a sneer. “I may be an earthbender, but through my father’s bloodline I am a Fire Nation citizen.”

“Then how…?”

“My mother,” she replies tightly, “is an earthbender.”

The tiles pinning Zuko’s bare feet tighten with a curl of the assassin’s fist.

“My father taught me to always be loyal to the Fire Nation,” she continues, “to my _people—_ something you obviously never learned from _your_ father.”

Zuko clenches his teeth. He wants nothing more than to attack the volatile earthbender, to make her feel just an ounce of the pain that seizes his heart each time he’s compared to his father.

He is not like Ozai. He’s not, he’s _not,_ and Sokka reminds him of it all the time, and…

And Sokka isn’t here, and the man locked in the cell deep beneath the ground _is,_ and he commanded respect from his people that Zuko so sorely lacks, and he just—he needs to _fix this._

“Fine,” he says with a forced calm. “Release me, and then you can tell me about Yu Dao.”

The shock on the girl’s face is apparent, but she does as he asks. Someone wiser than Zuko would have taken the opportunity to subdue their attacker, yet he finds himself lowering his arms instead.

“You’re serious?” she asks cautiously, eyes tracking Zuko’s hands.

“Deadly.”

She takes a deep breath in, releases it. And then she begins to speak.


	21. homesickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s strange, being home.
> 
> The snow and freezing winds of Sokka’s youth feel uncomfortably foreign, as though his body has forgotten how to exist in its own element.
> 
> or: sokka adjusts. it’s a learning curve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter took a little longer, i had to spend way too much time writing papers and caulking my stupid baseboards so here we are
> 
> cw for dissociation and referenced abuse

It’s strange, being home.

The snow and freezing winds of Sokka’s youth feel uncomfortably foreign, as though his body has forgotten how to exist in its own element.

He’s managed to adjust to his dad’s missing limb, and reacclimated to food being covered in salt rather than spice. He’s gotten used to the shorter hours of sunlight, and he’s fallen back into the routine of living without staff catering to his every whim.

But the cold? The cold is something else. He’s pretty sure he’s shrouded in more coats than he owned in the entirety of his youth, nestled in a cozy, fur-lined igloo on the edge of town, and yet…

And yet, he spends all his nights shivering.

The pragmatist in him says he’d sleep better with a fire, but his gut says the strange, hypocritical homesickness it would ignite would burn far worse than the ice.

(Because it’s smoke and charcoal and _Zuko,_ and there’s a letter crumpled in his pocket addressed to him—no, addressed to _Ambassador Sokka_ —that he can’t bring himself to open because he simply can’t take the heartache of false professional pretenses right now.)

Dad notices something’s wrong, because of course he does. One minute, he and Sokka are joking about the time a young Bato got dragged overboard while trying to catch a fish; then, barely a second later, there’s a warm hand on Sokka’s shoulder and a familiar voice asking him what’s wrong.

“It’s nothing,” Sokka mumbles, leaning more fully against the side of his dad’s bed. “Seriously.”

“It’s not nothing if you’re upset.”

Sokka purses his lips and grabs a stick to poke at the kindling in the center of the room in lieu of a response. He can feel his dad’s eyes boring into the back of his head, and eventually relents.

“Okay, fine,” he groans. “There’s just some stuff going on in the Fire Nation right now.”

“Stuff?”

“Y’know,” Sokka says. “Things.”

“Uh huh…”

It’s clear his dad doesn’t believe him, and Sokka would be offended on his behalf if he _did_ take his answers at face value, because he’s barely even trying to wrestle back control of the conversation at this point.

“It just feels like nobody wants to change,” he admits.

(He doesn’t say that this “nobody” has a name that starts with Z- and ends with -uko, because his statement is already a little too close to the truth for comfort.)

“I’m sure it’s frustrating,” Dad says, “but the war won’t be erased overnight.”

Right. The war. That’s definitely what they’re talking about.

“Is Zuko giving you any trouble?”

Sokka has a split second of panic where he’s convinced his dad is a mind reader before he remembers that, to the majority of people in the world, he and Zuko are simply friends. (Though he’s fairly certain some people—such as the man currently forcing Sokka through a clumsy heart-to-heart—would definitely push that metric back towards “acquaintances of necessity.”)

“No more than usual,” Sokka replies once he’s able to get air back into his lungs.

“Do I need to—“ Whatever offhanded threat his dad was about to issue dissolves into a hacking fit.

Sokka spins around to clap him on the back, switching to soothing circles once it seems that the lingering pneumonia has retreated back to festering quietly in his lungs.

“Lay down,” Sokka says as he drags himself up to stand. “I’ll go get you some more medicine.”

Dad looks ready to protest, but then thinks better of it. _(_ _At least_ someone _in my life has enough common sense not to aggravate an injury,_ Sokka thinks bitterly.)

He pulls his jacket tighter around him when he steps out into the snow, squinting against the sun’s blinding reflection as he hobbles in the direction of the healer’s hut.

Gran-Gran is inside manning the supplies, and she offers him a tired smile when he asks for more of the special pain-relieving tea.

“I’m glad you’re here, Sokka,” she says as she sorts through the various bottles and herbs. “Your father’s much stronger already.”

“I’m sure he’ll look even better once Katara works her water magic on him.”

The hunch of Gran-Gran’s shoulders is so slight that, if Sokka hadn’t been paying attention, he surely would have missed it.

“Katara _is_ coming, right?”

Slowly, Gran-Gran shakes her head.

“What? Why not?”

“I did not think it was something she should worry about right now.”

“Wait.” Sokka takes a step back, features hardening. “Does she even know what happened?”

Gran-Gran’s silence is answer enough. 

“What the hell, Gran-Gran?” He knows he’s probably breaking all sorts of religious laws about forsaking one’s elders or whatever, but he’s far too upset to care.

“She’s doing important work with the Avatar.”

“Are you saying my work isn’t?”

“You know it’s not the same as—“

“Why?” Sokka cuts her off. “Because I’m not a bender?”

“No,” Gran-Gran snaps. “Because you were supposed to be chief!”

The words hang heavy between them.

There’s a fire in his blood, harsh exhales coming out in clouds of heat. (He thinks he’s beginning to see the appeal in breathing smoke.)

“I know you have duties elsewhere,” Gran-Gran says, softer this time. “But please, your father really needs your help right now.”

Sokka sighs and hangs his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Gran-Gran pulls him in for a hug with a surprising amount of strength for someone her age.

“I can write the letter,” he says when they break apart, “but Katara should still know.”

Gran-Gran nods, slipping a bag of tea leaves into his hands. “Of course. I assume I’ll see you at dinner later? Eska is making sea prune stew.”

Sokka smiles, and for the life of him he can’t tell if the motion is fake or not.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * *

Zuko’s head hasn’t stopped reeling in what feels like hours, or maybe days, or weeks, or—shit, he’s pretty sure it’s _actually_ been days now. He feels like that can’t be right, but he also can’t remember the last time he slept so maybe he isn’t the best judge of this sort of thing.

(Suki or Ty Lee is definitely onto him at this point, and since they surely gossip about what a disaster he is when he’s out of earshot—which isn’t even that far, courtesy of his father—he has no doubt that one of them is going to ream him for it any day now.)

The moral of the story is, Zuko’s mind has been stuck on an endless, nauseating tilt-a-whirl ever since he’d made the impulsive decision to have midnight chat with a would-be assassin, followed by the even _more_ impulsive decision to let said assassin go free afterwards.

Yet not even the embarrassing ease with which he’d succumbed to the whims of his planet-sized inferiority complex is what’s currently scrambling already-fried his brain; instead, it’s the seemingly impossible idea that Kori—since the girl, apparently, had a name other than “67th person to try to kill Zuko this month”—planted in his hyperactive mind:

The people of Yu Dao are living in harmony. Two formerly opposed nations, coexisting; it almost sounds too good to be true. And maybe is, considering his gut reaction was (and still is) to dismiss the idea entirely. After all, who’s to say that Kori isn’t just spewing lies to help her father preserve his mayoral position?

But Kori’s mere existence—her paradoxical, undeniable existence—shows it to be the truth. She is both Earth and Fire, the ground at her command and her eyes shining a pure, molten gold.

She is also the thrower of a massive fucking wrench in the Harmony Restoration Movement, and Zuko has no idea what to do about it. He knows he should probably talk it over with someone, get some advice that _isn’t_ from the brain of a sleep-deprived, barely-functional young adult. Unfortunately, his options are pitifully limited.

If he asks an advisor—hell, if he asks anyone even _remotely_ politically inclined—their answer will undoubtedly fall on the side of their own national loyalty. If he asks Uncle, he’ll be interrupting his peaceful, tea-filled retirement and admitting weakness (or, worse, exposing himself to more manipulation). If he asks Ty Lee or Suki, all he’ll get is more smothering and suspicion under the guise of a security detail.

There’s only one person whom, loathe as Zuko is to admit it, he actually trusts to provide him with a rational response, and guess what? He isn’t fucking here.

(And Zuko isn’t bitter, he’s not, but he had to hear from _Taizin_ that Sokka made it to the South Pole in one piece, because his boyfriend apparently can’t be bothered to send a two-sentence reply to an Agni-forsaken letter to verify that he hasn’t sunken to the bottom of the sea.)

So he simply spends his nights pacing and thinking, resigned to the fact that the battle against insomnia is not one he can win. Left foot, right foot, up and down the echoing palace corridors. An outsider might find it surprising that he hasn’t left a trail of scorched marble tiles in his wake, but Zuko learned better long ago. Here in these hallowed halls, he is the only one that leaves with scars.

He’s yanked back to the present by the sharp scent of spices and the realization that he’s wandered near the kitchens. Funny—he doesn’t remember crossing into the eastern wing.

He may as well make some tea while he’s here, he reasons. Yes, a cup of calming jasmine, and he’ll be good as new. He’s in the pantry in the blink of an eye, vanishing and reappearing in a numb darkness of his own creation. A kettle trembles in his shaky hands, and he knows he should feel the weight of the porcelain on his palms but…

(But he feels nothing and everything, crushing air pressure and guilt and hollowness warring against each other on all sides of him.)

He watches himself steep the tea leaves with hands that aren’t his own, then heat them with a flame that surely cannot be his, for his chest is too cold and empty in the chasm where his inner fire is supposed to be.

China clinks together on the tray clenched in his shaky grip, trembling and threatening to shatter with each unsteady, detached step.

(If he wasn’t so far out of his body, he’d find it morbidly amusing that he only manages to find balance in the disconnect.)

He knows where he’s going, now; if he’s being honest with himself—something he really, truly despises doing—he’s always known.

_(“You’ll be back, and I’ll be waiting for you, son.”)_

* * *

“I don’t understand.”

His father’s sigh of disdain is bitterly familiar.

“What I’m _saying_ ,” he says, pausing to coolly sip his tea, “is that there is no right or wrong apart from what you decide.”

“But that makes no sense!”

He forces himself not to waver under the disappointed glare pointed his way.

“You are the Fire Lord,” Father explains, as though speaking to a child. “That means what you choose, by definition, is right.”

Zuko shakes his head. “No. Right and wrong are bigger than me, or you, or even the Avatar!”

“The Avatar?” Father scoffs. “That child is an irrelevant relic of a bygone age. He wants to keep the world frozen in time by denying the inevitable victory of the strong over the weak!”

“Avatar Aang is my friend,” Zuko argues. “I trust him.”

“More than you trust yourself?”

“I don’t—“ Zuko pauses to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Even if it’s right to save Yu Dao, I can’t just go back on the agreements with King Kuei. I gave him my word.”

“Do you think the Earth King, after being humiliated time and time again by our mighty nation and his incompetence, will be reasonable about this?”

“Maybe if we discuss—“

 _“Don’t_ interrupt me,” Father cuts in cruelly. “Now, do you really think he’ll treat the remaining Fire Nation colonials fairly?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko admits, looking down at the untouched tea in his hands.

He expects Father to berate him for it, to call him weak; yet the next words from his mouth are strangely non-abrasive.

“Zuko, these are your people. You must do everything in your power to protect them.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“I know,” Father says, his gaze meeting Zuko’s and holding it. “That’s why I am here to guide you.”

Zuko nods in a silent response; he knows better than to speak (to _disrespect)_ when his input is unwarranted.

“You have the potential to become something great,” he continues. “You can bring honor to our nation.”

 _Honor._ The word echoes in time with the constant cacophony in Zuko’s skull.

“Now, are you ready to accept my teachings?”

_(It was cruel and it was wrong, it was cruel and it was wrong, it was cruel and it was—)_

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Come back tomorrow. Bring more tea.”

Zuko stands and bows, then bends down to pick up the tray at his feet. He’s sure his father can hear the cups rattling from the tremor in his hands, but he makes no comment on it.

The shaking refuses to abate, even as he steps out of the prison into the fresh, night air. His left ear is ringing worse than usual, and his scar prickles with a phantom pain.

He doesn’t notice the shadow looming on the balcony overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...oops
> 
> (sorry i did gran-gran like that, it’s for the Plot™️)


	22. heartbreaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Loyal members of the New Ozai Society,” Ukano starts. “Thank you for gathering here tonight, and for your patience and dedication to removing the imposter from the throne.”
> 
> or: kei lo has a rude awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for references to sex (that could be seen as cheating) and abuse

Kei Lo has always felt safer under the mask.

There’s a power in the anonymity, in the unwavering bravery painted onto it regardless of the expression underneath. Sure, it’s somewhat unsettling to kneel beside a swarm of others in identical getups; but it’s also invigorating to be a part of something bigger than himself.

The only individual in the massive cavern serving as the New Ozai Society’s meeting base without their face covered is Ukano, whose mask is tucked under his arm as the other gestures to the crowd seated before him.

“Loyal members of the New Ozai Society,” Ukano starts. “Thank you for gathering here tonight, and for your patience and dedication to removing the imposter from the throne.

“Next week, the Fire Lord will travel to Yu Dao to aid in the continued removal of innocent Fire Nation citizens from their homes.”

He pauses for a chorus of booing.

“With this information, gathered by one of the Society’s most devoted followers, we now have the opportunity to mount a coordinated attack.”

Jora, seated at Kei Lo’s side, gives him a congratulatory clap on the shoulder as the cave erupts into celebratory chanting.

“Power to the Fire Nation! Power to the Fire Nation!”

Kei Lo grins and raises his fist. “Power to the Fire Nation!”

* * *

Ukano summons him to the area serving as his pseudo-office after the meeting disperses.

“You’ve done great work today, Kei Lo,” he says.

The praise short-circuits Kei Lo’s mind for a moment, freezing the hand lowering his mask from his face. It’s only when Ukano clears his throat that he comes back to his senses and sets the mask down onto the table in front of him.

“Thank you, sir.”

Ukano seems to consider him for another second, analyzing with almost an uncomfortable degree of scrutiny, before replying in a tone akin to fondness.

“You’re a fine young man,” he says. “I have a sort of special mission for you.”

The words send a thrill of excitement down Kei Lo’s spine. He tries not to smile too widely when he asks what it is.

“My daughter has been brainwashed by the traitor on the throne,” Ukano explains. “Her misplaced loyalties represent a threat to our movement.”

Kei Lo pauses, the warm pride quickly receding.

Is Ukano asking what it sounds like he is? Kei Lo may have no qualms about putting the treasonous Fire Lord in the ground, but someone’s daughter?

“I want you to get close to her, convince her of our ways. Show her why we need to remove the imposter.”

“No offense, Master Ukano,” Kei Lo says slowly, “but she’s your daughter. Why don’t you talk to her?”

Ukano sighs. “I would, but she has no desire to see me. Our last encounter was...violent. She’s the one responsible for interrupting our efforts at the Fire Lily Festival.”

Kei Lo swallows, a sudden wave of nerves overtaking him. “I see.”

“She’s a sweet girl,” Ukano assures. “Just misguided.”

Kei Lo frowns, then, his mind returning to a conversation in this same apartment months prior. “You said she used to date Zuko.”

Ukano’s expression sours. “That’s correct. Her loyalties once rested with the true bearer of the crown, yet she followed that weakling in his betrayal.”

His pinched face relaxes into a clearly forced neutrality, then. 

“Once she trusts you, tell her what I could not.” He leans in closer. “Tell her that her beloved Fire Lord left her for a Water Tribe savage.”

Kei Lo nods, his anger flaring in sympathy for the manipulation this mystery girl clearly underwent. “It would be my honor.”

Ukano smiles. “Good. I’ll write the address down for you, but know that she’ll be at the big flower shop near the commercial district.”

Kei Lo freezes. “Flower shop?”

“Yes,” Ukano confirms, nonplussed. “What, are you allergic?”

Kei Lo shakes his head, barely able to get his too-big tongue to spell out the barbed words struggling up his throat.

“Your daughter,” he says weakly. “What did you say her name was?”

Ukano arches his brow, seemingly confused by the fact that Kei Lo’s world is two seconds from imploding.

When he speaks, it’s far too casually for the power that a single word should never possess, for the heart hammering in Kei Lo’s chest that he’s unwittingly allowed to be shattered.

“Mai.”

* * *

He storms to the flower shop in a daze. He doesn’t see Mai inside, which leaves him equal parts frustrated and relieved. He wants to find her, to yell, to ask how she could lie to him like that; at the same time, if he doesn’t confront her, maybe he can continue to live in the safe bubble of denial for just a while longer.

Still, he forces the words out once he gets inside, asking for Mai’s location through clenched teeth.

“She’s upstairs with a friend right now,” Mura replies, elbows-deep in soil and somehow impervious to the glare darkening Kei Lo’s expression.

Mai’s mother nods from where she stands behind the register. She’s too engrossed in watching Tom-Tom, who’s perched on the countertop beside her and playing with her necklace, to meet Kei Lo’s eyes for more than a second, but the kindness in them makes the anger in his chest flare even brighter.

“You can go right on up,” she says. “The door should be unlocked.”

He grits out his thanks and hopes she doesn’t notice the way his fists are clenched at his sides.

The door is, as promised, open at the top of the stairs. It creaks when he pushes through it, and it takes an immense amount of willpower not to slam it shut behind him.

He looks around the apartment once he’s inside, suddenly very much aware of the fact that he’s never actually stepped foot inside it. It’s cozy, and he doesn’t just mean that as a downplayed synonym for small; the walls are decorated in a homey array of tapestries and pressed flowers, vibrant in a way that somehow doesn’t clash with the colorful rug covering most of the floor.

He slides his shoes off and takes a tentative step forward. The weaving beneath his feet—bare, because he may be mad but he isn’t an animal—is just as soft as it looks. He takes a moment to squish it between his toes before walking to the center of the room. He doesn’t see Mai here, nor does he see her in the attached kitchen.

There’s a short hallway to his left adorned in similar decor, paintings and weavings decorating even the three doors along the side. He tentatively cracks the nearest one open, which turns out to be a bathroom. The next one is similarly Mai-free, and he realizes with an awkward cringe that it must be Mura’s room. There’s a second, smaller cot set up beside the main bed, and the stuffed animals on top of it indicate it likely belongs to Tom-Tom.

The last room, then, must be Mai’s. (Which is weird, because hadn’t she rejected his numerous advances with the excuse of a shared bedroom?) He still isn’t quite sure what he’s going to say to her, but the anger roiling inside him signals loud and clear that it won’t be pretty.

He doesn’t bother knocking, jerking the door open and barging in; it’s only fair after the way Mai wormed herself into his life, cruel and uncaring of how she was trampling all over his heart.

“Mai, we need to…” The anger dissipates into a scared sort of confusion as his brain struggles to comprehend the sight before him. “...talk?”

Mai jerks back at his voice, eyes nearly as wide as Ty Lee’s beside her.

Beside her, that is, after she rolls off from on top of her.

“What the fuck?” Kei Lo whispers, hands beginning to tremble. “What the fuck?”

His gaze flickers wildly between the two girls, both of whom are stripped down to their undergarments and blushing something fierce. 

“Kei Lo,” Mai says shakily. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell are _you_ doing here? With- with her?”

The “her” in question is shimmying back into her clothes, which lay rumpled on the floor beside a dress Kei Lo recognizes as Mai’s. She tosses it onto the bed, and Mai catches it with trembling hands.

“Fuck you,” he spits, hating the tremor in his voice almost as badly as he hates the look of pure concern on Ty Lee’s face. (Concern not for him and his dignity, but for Mai.) “How could you lie to me like that? I thought we had something!”

It’s too much, and his body is stomping towards the door before he’s consciously aware he’s doing it. He doesn’t bother putting his shoes on all the way, too engrossed in the pain shooting through his bloodstream.

He thinks he hears Mai call his name, but the pounding of his pulse is deafening enough that he can’t even process the worried questions the women in the shop send his way.

His legs burn as he runs, and his heart yearns for home in a way it hasn’t since his first night away. He feels utterly empty when he makes it back to his bunk, drained and achy.

“Kid? What’s wrong?”

The pure worry in Jora’s voice is what opens the floodgates, the hot tears stinging his eyes finally escaping down his cheeks. He flings himself onto the lower bed beside Jora and, if the older man is surprised by the arms suddenly thrown around him, he doesn’t show it.

“She lied to me,” Kei Lo says between sobs. “Mai, it was- it was all a lie. She’s Master Ukano’s daughter. She’s- she’s been using me.”

Jora’s grip tightens momentarily. “What do you mean?”

Kei Lo’s crying morphs into a bitter laugh, thick with tears. “She’s friends with the- with the imposter.”

He pulls back, then, eyes wide. “I didn’t really tell her anything, I swear!”

“I believe you.”

The trust in Jora’s expression is what lets the next words tumble out: “I walked in on her with- with someone else.”

“Shit.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

Jora sighs and pulls Kei Lo in for another hug. “Just let it out, kid. Let it out.”

It isn’t until later that night that Kei Lo realizes he never told Mai exactly what lie he’d caught her in.

* * *

Mai shouldn’t be so torn up about this. She shouldn’t. Mortified, yes (and believe her when she says she most certainly is); but gutted? Heartbroken? That couldn’t be right.

She doesn’t—didn’t—even _like_ Kei Lo aside from his usefulness! He was a resource, nothing more, nothing less. (She squashes down the part of her that argues that maybe that isn’t entirely the truth.)

To make matters worse, Ty Lee—someone who shouldn’t have been involved in Mai’s mess of a plan to begin with—is now stuck comforting her.

“I’m fine,” she tries to assure Ty Lee for the 50th time.

Ty Lee shakes her head, her hand never stilling where it rubs soothing circles into Mai’s shoulder.

“I thought you’d be glad he was gone,” Mai says wryly.

“How could I be glad when my best friend is upset?”

Mai can’t stop her involuntary wince at Ty Lee’s wording. It’s a whole new level of crushing, an ache far deeper than Kei Lo’s accusations. _Best friend._ Is that all they are?

She asks as much, because she’s apparently a masochist like that.

“Do you want to be something more?”

Mai doesn’t reply, instead lowering her chin to stare down at her lap so that she can continue to avoid whatever expression she might find on Ty Lee’s face.

“Because I do.”

Mai’s head snaps up at this. “What are you saying?”

Ty Lee shrugs; she’d be the picture of innocence if not for the small quirk of her lips.

“I want you to be my girlfriend, silly.”

Mai’s breath catches in her throat. “Yes.”

Ty Lee grins, her eyes widening and then scrunching up at the corners. “Yes?”

Mai runs a hand through Ty Lee’s hair, gently guiding their lips together.

“Yes,” she says again. “Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.”

Ty Lee all but squeals in delight, and Mai hopes that, despite her physical inability to make such a noise, her own unbridled happiness is more than visible.

Then Ty Lee puts her hands on Mai’s cheeks and pulls her in for another kiss, and it’s suddenly hard to think of anything that isn’t the sheer, electric warmth encompassing her.

It’s freeing in a way that being with Zuko never was, an adoration and contentment that Mai spent most of her life believing was confined solely to fairy tales. Someone with less restraint might even call it love.

(Though she isn’t quite ready to admit it, the intoxicating closeness of Ty Lee’s presence—her body, her smile, her laugh—makes Mai think her resistance may come crumbling down very, very soon.)

* * *

Mai has a disheartening sense of deja vu at the sound of a knock on her door. (Well, almost deja vu, because a certain patsy hadn’t even bothered to announce his presence before barging in like he owned the place.)

“Mai? Ty Lee? Are you here?”

Mai turns to Ty Lee to ask if it’s worth it to feign being absent only to see the other girl slapping a hand to her forehead.

“Oh my god,” she says with an unfairly cute pout. “I totally forgot I told her to meet us here!”

She raises her voice to call at the door, “Hi, Suki!”

“Hey. Are you guys decent?”

Mai flushes at the implication, while Ty Lee just shrugs. (At least they’re actually both clothed this time.)

“Yeah,” Mai replies. “You can come in.”

The door inches open a crack, a wide brown eye peeking through.

“We’re dressed, I swear,” Ty Lee says with a giggle.

Suki snorts as she pushes the door the rest of the way open. “Half of my warriors are dating each other. Believe me, you can never be too careful.”

Mai smirks. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“Try fifty.”

Suki’s smile is blinding against the dark lipstick standard of her Kyoshi Warrior makeup. She’s only partially in uniform, armor and headpiece traded for the simple green tunic underneath. (Her fans, of course, are also still strapped to her hips.)

“How was work?” Ty Lee asks. “Did you, you know…?”

Mai watches as the two share a look.

“I tried,” Suki replies. “It didn’t go well, obviously.”

Ty Lee frowns. “Of course not.”

“Anyone want to tell me what you’re talking about?” Mai asks, attempting to keep the bitterness out of her voice. 

Ty Lee nods at Suki, who simply sighs and takes a deep breath.

“I saw Zuko visiting Ozai the other night.”

The words are like a punch to the gut. “What?”

“I was on security patrol,” Suki explains. “He went into the prison for about an hour, then came out looking like shit. And, well, who else is there for him to talk to?”

Mai’s chest feels tight, breaths sticking in her throat.

“I talked to the warden after,” Suki continues. “Apparently, this has been going on for a while.”

Mai pinches the bridge of her nose. “Shit.”

“I tried to talk to him about it today, but he denied it.”

“Of course he did,” Mai mutters.

“I just don’t get it,” Ty Lee says, frowning. “Why would he want to go see him?”

“I mean, it _is_ his dad,” Suki points out. 

“But he—“

 _“Ty Lee,”_ Mai warns. “Not now.”

Suki looks between the two of them, clearly aware that there’s some sort of information she’s missing out on.

What does she expect them to say, though? That Zuko’s dad burnt half his face off in front of a crowd? That, in the midst of what she’d thought had been a two-way exchange of affection, she’d seen similar scars crawling down the bare skin of his back?

“Ozai is a manipulative bastard,” Mai says instead. “He always has been.”

Suki frowns, as though reasoning out a difficult puzzle; Mai almost hopes she fails in her mental quest, because the completed jigsaw of Zuko’s trauma is not a pretty picture. 

“Maybe you could try talking to Zuko,” Suki suggests after a moment. “Didn’t you used to date?”

Mai winces inadvertently. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

_(I don’t know if that’s a good idea, because our entire relationship was built on lies. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, because I just pissed off a member of the group literally looking to assassinate him.)_

_(I don’t know if that’s a good idea, because I watched Ozai use his kids as pawns and I didn’t do a goddamn thing.)_

“Yeah,” Ty Lee adds, seemingly sensing Mai’s discomfort. “I doubt he’d listen to us.”

“Okay…” Suki drags out the word. “Then who _would_ he listen to?”

“Sokka?” Ty Lee suggests.

Suki shakes her head. “I talked to him before he left. He made it seem like things between them were...strained.”

“Iroh?”

Suki disagrees again, an immovable object in the face of Ty Lee’s unstoppable optimism. “Too political.”

Mai swallows, turning the information over in her mind. There’s an answer sitting on the tip of her tongue, one that has the potential to be a blessing or a curse, a cure-all or a bomb.

“There’s only one person Zuko will listen to about Ozai,” she says slowly.

(She thinks of Zuko’s anger after his first visit to the ranch, the way he clenched his fists so tightly that they bled on the ride back as he tried to contain his brotherly rage.)

(She wonders if he’ll turn that fury onto her after she speaks the irrevocable, undeniable words on her lips.)

“We have to tell Azula.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to act like i cared about kei lo’s feelings was the hardest writing challenge i’ve ever faced lmao


	23. sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” Azula says without preamble, “you’ve been speaking to Father.”
> 
> or: any chill these siblings have achieved vanishes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for referenced abuse, injuries/scars (not self-harm) & minor violence

Azula never thought she would fear a day of the week. It’s childish at worst, and embarrassing at best. Here she is, less than two years after bringing Ba Sing Se to its knees, and the simple knowledge of the date is enough to nearly make her lose her breakfast.

She still isn’t quite sure what she’ll say to Zuko once he arrives. Sure, she’s been mulling it over practically nonstop for half a week; but one of the many downsides of constant therapy is the pitifully lessened effectiveness of her rumination.

In the end, when Azula is confronted with the reanimated corpse masquerading as her brother, she decides to abandon tact altogether.

“So,” she says without preamble, “you’ve been speaking to Father.”

Zuko, still seconds into adjusting in his seat, stiffens. “Where did you hear that?”

Azula raises a brow. “Not even going to deny it?”

“Tell me who told you!”

Azula scoffs. “This is your intervention, Brother, not mine.”

_ “Tell me!”  _ he shouts, a shower of sparks flashing from his tongue.

“No,” Azula replies, forcing her voice to remain steady. “I don’t think I will.”

_ The interaction had lasted no more than ten minutes, yet to Azula it felt like a lifetime. She’d been rightfully confused as to who was visiting her—her brother and friends had a fairly regular schedule, because they were all neurotic like that—and now was even more lost as to the distantly familiar girl seated across from her. _

_ “You’re the Kyoshi Warrior,” she eventually reasoned out. _

_ “Suki,” the girl corrected. _

_ Azula glanced down at the hand extended towards her but didn't reach to take it. _

_ “Yes,” Azula hummed, giving her a once-over. “My brother’s mentioned you.” _

_ “I’ll be honest,” Suki said. “ _ _ I’m not looking to be friends.” _

_ “No,” Azula replied, “I’d presume not.” _

_ They stared at each other in an awkward silence for a moment before Azula had enough.  _ _ “Now would be a great time  _ _ to tell me what business you have here interrupting my Thursday afternoon.” _

_ Suki paused to glance around as though checking for eavesdroppers. _

_ “Something scandalous?” Azula prompted. “No one is listening in, but the rumor mill has grown a bit stale...” _

_The implication of her words wasn’t lost on Suki. “This is serious. Nothing I say leaves this room.”  
_

_“I think I’ll be the judge of that.”_

_ “You know what?” Suki snapped. “Fine. Zuko’s visiting Ozai.” _

_ The words were a sudden vice around Azula’s throat. “What?” _

_ ”You heard me.” _

_”No,” Azula replied, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t.”_

_Suki bit her lip. “He did. I saw him.”_

_“He wouldn’t do that,” Azula repeated. “Why would he do that?”_

_Gone was the previous animosity in Suki’s expression, replaced instead by something nauseatingly near to sympathy._

_ “I’m sorry to dump this on you, but Mai thinks you’re the only one he’ll listen to.” _

_ Azula swallowed thickly, desperately trying to wrangle her emotions back under control. “I see. Thank you.” _

_ Suki nodded and stood to leave. _

_ “Oh,” Azula added, “and for what it’s worth, I apologize for the way I treated you.” _

_ Suki’s eyes softened.  _ _ “Talk some sense into Zuko, and I’ll think about forgiving you.” _

Zuko rises sharply to his feet. “I don’t have time for this.”

“What?” Azula chides. “You’re just going to leave?”

“Are you going to stop me?”

“You can’t avoid this, Zuzu. You and I both know he’s manipulating you.”

“How do I know  _ you’re  _ not manipulating me?” he bites back. “It wouldn’t be the first time!”

Azula’s fists tense at her sides. “Yes, well, you of all people should know I’m a changed woman.”

Zuko scowls. “You’re just jealous I’m getting his attention for once.”

The fire trapped beneath Azula’s skin flares, and for a moment she’s half convinced her hands will erupt in flames despite the cuffs stifling her bending.

“He  _ hurt  _ you, Zuko.”

“Maybe I deserved it.”

“Maybe you—“ Azula cuts herself off, rage bubbling up inside her (though towards her father or brother, she cannot say). “He tried to kill you!”

_ (“Dad’s gonna kill you…”) _

“Yeah?” Zuko snarls. “News flash, Azula: so did you!”

Azula clamps her jaw shut so quickly she feels an echo reverberating through her teeth.

“I didn’t,” she says. (It sounds weak, even to her own ears.)

“Really?” Zuko begins to scrabble with the edge of his robes with an almost deranged ferocity, a single mindedness with which Azula is all too familiar. “What do you call this, then?”

Azula stares, she stares and stares until her vision blurs. There’s a starburst-shaped burn swirling across his chest, red and angry and nauseatingly similar to the scar tissue on his face.

She wants to tell him she hadn’t meant to do it, that the blow was meant for the Water Tribe peasant who’d decided to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. But that wasn’t really true, was it? Azula was willing to do whatever it took to win the throne, willing to fry the body of whoever got in her way, her own flesh and blood or otherwise.

(She pretends not to see the other scars peeking out from beneath the stretched-back sleeve, pastel pink reminders of their father’s disappointment.)

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t…”

“What?” Zuko snarls. “You didn’t mean to?”

“Yes! I’m not like him!” 

(She knows it’s a lie, knows that the reflection in the mirror looks all too much like her father; knows that the poison he injected in her veins is a venom she can never fully flush out of her system.)

“No, I suppose you’re not,” he says with a scoff.  _ “He’s _ trying to help me. You’re just cruel.”

Azula recoils as if she’s been slapped. (It is, as she’s slowly coming to realize, a feeling with which she was once intimately acquainted.)

“He’s using you! Can’t you see that?”

Zuko groans, raking his fingers through his already disheveled hair.

“I don’t know how the hell to be Fire Lord,” he grits out, each syllable strained. “Is that what you want to hear? I don’t know what I’m doing, and he  _ does,  _ and he’s been right, and I—“

He stops himself with another hiss of frustration, letting his head fall into his hands. His crown—a blinding piece of gold that Azula hasn’t seen since the day of what was supposed to be her coronation—glints in the torchlight. (She wonders if he even realizes he’s still wearing it.)

“You know what he did to the world was wrong. What he did to  _ you  _ was wrong.”

(It’s the first time this string of words has come out of her mouth. The syllables taste like copper.)

Zuko shakes his head. “He’s teaching me. That’s- that’s what he’s always done.”

Azula swears her heart is close to shattering in her ribcage.

“Zuko,” she says, “please.”

“No,” Zuko replies, more forcefully this time. “No, you always lie. Agni, I’m so fucking stupid.”

The words sting. All she can choke past her lips is another weak plea for a trust she knows she doesn’t deserve.

“This conversation is over,” he snaps as he stands. “Goodbye, Azula.”

“Wait, you can’t—“

He’s out the door before she can piece together exactly what she meant to say. (Had she meant anything at all?)

A healer enters in Zuko’s wake to escort her back to the courtyard. They mostly give her space, now, because she’s found the chi-blocking bracelets are a worthy concession for her privacy. (Though she’s loathe to admit it, the cool metal on her wrists has become a grounding presence.)

She wishes, now, that she hadn’t built such a trust with those around her, because there’s nothing she’d love more than the numbness of incapacitation.

She supposes she’ll just have to settle for crying instead.

* * *

Yu Dao, like most things in Zuko’s life, quickly becomes a shitshow.

He barely lasts a week after placing the city under his protection before it all goes up in flames, another tally in his infinite track record of decisions blowing up in his face.

(He pointedly refuses to think about the consequences of choosing to let his sister back into his life, which are almost worse than the current political clusterfuck.

Her voice plays on loop in his brain, an antithesis to the constant mental chorus of  _ Azula always lies _ .)

First, there’s the riots. He’s no stranger to unrest—not to mention disdain for his ruling—but  _ Agni _ , this is just excessive. And don’t even get him  _ started  _ on the fact that he’s pretty sure he saw two of Jet’s Freedom Fighters in the crowd. (Though he probably should have expected this, seeing as how the bastard has yet to give up on haunting him.)

Then, as if that isn’t bad enough, Aang—because of  _ course  _ the Avatar has to show up—can’t seem to get it through his thick fucking skull that the people of Yu Dao may not  _ want  _ to be uprooted from their homes. He even has the audacity to try to fight Zuko’s guards (who, mind you, are just doing their goddamn jobs), when he arrives, and then nearly tears them all to shreds in the Avatar state.

He’s grateful for Katara’s intervention for all of two seconds before she starts spouting nonsense about him  _ “hurting her”  _ in his attempt to stop his people from being obliterated. And since Sokka isn’t there, it’s two against one—AKA an argument he has no chance of winning. (Agni, he misses that man so fucking much.)

His saving grace—a royal messenger hawk ordering his speedy return home—isn’t much better: apparently, Mai’s brother has gone missing, and she suspects there’s a larger, non-human plot afoot. He’d dismiss it entirely (though certainly still use it as an excuse to get the hell out of the colonies) but...it’s  _ Mai,  _ and he owes her his life a hundred times over. And if she needs his help finding Tom-Tom, he’s damn well going to offer it.

Aang offers his assistance, pulling the whole “Great Bridge” schtick, but Zuko isn’t too keen on spending more time with the infuriatingly chipper (and bullheaded) source of his endless migraines. He  _ does  _ promise not to make any major decisions without all world leaders present, and Zuko can’t help but feel relieved that he can put this mockery of a peace talk on the back burner, if only for a little while.

That is, of course, until he stumbles into a  _ bigger  _ nightmare back in Caldera.

Technically, his new hell starts before he even gets steps foot in the palace. It’s another bid for his life, because  _ of course  _ it is.

Unlike the last several assassination attempts (which at least had the decency not to blow up a  _ perfectly good  _ carriage), this is a group effort. If he wasn’t so goddamn tired, he’d almost be impressed by the theatricality of it; after dropping a dynamite-covered tree in front of his ride, a dozen assailants clad in all black emerge in a perfect circle around him and his guards. Their coordinated outfits, which are frankly ridiculous, are accented with red kabuki masks; upon closer inspection, he realizes they’re designed in imitation of the Dragon Emperor.

(And here he was thinking  _ his  _ alter-ego was dramatic.)

“Free Fire Lord Ozai!” they chant in unison. “Power to the Fire Nation!”

Zuko looks between the group blocking their path and the two Kyoshi Warriors tasked with accompanying him. (If Sokka was here, he’d make a joke about them “fanning out.”)

(If Sokka was here, maybe Zuko wouldn’t be so miserable in the first place.)

“Ready yourselves!” one of the Kyoshi Warriors cries. “We’re in for a fight!”

And, well, who is Zuko to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to take out his aggression?

Unfortunately, the attackers don’t...well, they don’t  _ attack.  _ Instead, they seem oddly keen on talking (and, by extension, giving Zuko another headache.)

One man detaches himself from the rest, his shoulders squared in a pose he seems to think is intimidating.

“Zuko!” he shouts. “The time has come for you to return the throne to the one true Fire Lord. We demand you step down at once!”

Ah, so it’s  _ that _ old song and dance.

“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You expect me to give up my destiny—my  _ rightful place  _ in the nation—just because a bunch of assholes too cowardly to show their faces asked me to?”

He receives no reply.

“For fuck’s sake,” he groans. “This is ridiculous!”

From there, it’s only a matter of a few coordinated blasts of fire and some impressive fan-wielding from his guards to send the group running for the hills.

Now, only the spokesman remains. “You’ve made a grave mistake,” he says slowly. “When we return, you’ll be sorry.”

Zuko can only imagine the smarmy grin he’s surely hiding behind the mask.

“Yeah,” he mutters, rolling his eyes as the man disappears after his comrades. “We’ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy hanukkah to my jew crew!!


	24. numbness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aang and I will be there in a week.” That’s what Katara had replied to Sokka’s letter begging for her help...almost 12 days ago.
> 
> Well, he thinks bitterly. That was a fucking lie.
> 
> or: shit goes down at the south pole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for references to sex & homophobia, coming out, and a scene that could be interpreted as passively suicidal

If people could stop dramatically tromping through Mai’s place of work like she’s on a damn soap opera, she would very much appreciate it.

She’s still recovering from Kei Lo’s unfortunate entrance and bitter words, and even Ty Lee’s unannounced arrivals are a bit much. And now Zuko? Someone she’s pretty sure also worked in customer service? God, give her a fucking break.

It’s just her luck that the man somehow manages to surpass Kei Lo’s theatricality as he bursts through the door, eyes wide and breathing haggard. He’s disheveled in the worst kind of way, and there’s something visceral in the way his gaze darts around the store before it lands on Mai.

She’s half convinced he’s here to yell at her for the message she passed along to Azula, but there’s no anger in his expression. No, everything about him screams _desperate._

“Mai,” he gasps out, rushing to her side. “I came as soon as I could.”

Mai raises her brow. “Excuse me?”

“I got your letter,” he says, as if that explains anything.

“My what?”

Zuko groans and pats down his robes, stuffing his hand into his pocket once he hears the crinkling of paper.

“Your letter,” he repeats.

He thrusts a scroll towards her with a shaky hand, which she takes with knitted brows. It’s odd, because despite the fact that she hadn’t written to Zuko, the broken wax seal is identical to the one on the desk upstairs. _Huh._

She unfurls the parchment to find a strange message about her brother being kidnapped—a strange message written _in her handwriting._

“What the hell?” she murmurs to herself.

Upon closer inspection, she sees the slight deviations in the calligraphy; some lines are too sharp, while others are too long or curved. Yet it’s her signature scrawled at the bottom, and if she holds the scroll closer to her face, it’s the hint of florals from her perfume wafting off of it.

“I didn’t write this,” she says eventually.

“But- but that’s your handwriting!” Zuko splutters. “And it smells, uh, you know…”

Mai thanks any diety that will listen that her aunt is on her lunch break and the store is otherwise empty; after all, fumbling and blushing isn’t exactly ideal for the Fire Lord’s public image.

“Someone copied it.”

Zuko frowns. “So- so Tom-Tom…?”

“He’s fine,” Mai assures him. “He’s upstairs with my mom.”

Zuko lets his head fall into his hands. “I don’t understand.”

“Maybe someone wanted you to leave Yu Dao.”

“Who _didn’t_ want me to leave?” he mutters.

Mai purses her lips. “Well, we know it came from Caldera, right?”

Zuko nods, and Mai sees the exact moment his mopey confusion morphs into angry recognition.

“It was those stupid fucking loyalists.”

Mai’s heart skips a beat. “What?”

“These weirdos in masks attacked me on my way back.” He pauses, then adds, “They didn’t do a very good job, obviously.”

It’s almost funny, the way he looks so much like death incarnate that Mai actually needs such a clarification.

“Did they say what they wanted?” She’s almost too afraid to ask, but forces the words past her lips. 

“To put my father back on the throne,” Zuko replies dryly. “What else?”

“Yeah,” Mai repeats weakly, her chest caving in to the beat of _my fault, my fault, my fault._ “What else?”

“Mai?” Zuko asks softly. “What’s wrong.”

 _(“My fake boyfriend sent you an even faker letter so his cult could attack you”_ doesn’t have the right ring to it.

Neither does, she realizes with a sinking feeling, _“he found out who you are to me and used me to get to you.”)_

“Nothing,” Mai says, slipping back into her tried-and-true guise of apathy. “Go back to the palace. I have some business to take care of.”

* * *

_“Aang and I will be there in a week.”_ That’s what Katara had replied to Sokka’s letter begging for her help...almost 12 days ago.

 _Well,_ he thinks bitterly. _That was a fucking lie._

It’s not that he _needs_ his sister, per se. It’s more that Dad’s recovery is miserably slow, and Sokka’s become so laden with responsibilities that he doesn’t have much time to play caretaker. Gran-Gran has mostly taken over the role, but she can only do so much, being unbelievably old and whatnot.

His current “young and therefore capable of physical labor” task is gathering firewood, as there’s apparently a storm on the horizon. He hopes Appa doesn’t get caught in it (if his passengers ever show up); at this point, he’s pretty much resigned himself to the reality that Katara may just not be coming.

(Maybe Gran-Gran was right, and he should respect that she has more important things to do.)

(On second thought, he’s going to remain annoyed, as is his god-given right.)

He lugs the wood he’s gathered back to the center of the village, adding most of it to their communal stockpile. He then dumps half of the kindling in the guest igloo where he’s staying before lugging the rest to his dad’s.

(Because while he spends most of his time in his childhood home, his 18-year-old subconscious has already proven it can’t be trusted not to recreate scenarios he’d much rather relive in private.)

Dad is sitting up in bed when Sokka ducks inside, looking far better than he has in weeks.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Good.” Dad nods to the firewood now deposited in the corner. “Thank you for helping me, son.”

Sokka shrugs. “It’s what I’m here for.”

“I heard there’s a ship coming in today,” Dad says after a moment.

“Oh, yeah! I told Eska I’d help unload it later.”

Dad hums thoughtfully. “Do you think I could come with you? I think it’d do me good to get out for a bit before the storm hits.”

The half-witted medical knowledge rattling around in Sokka’s brain says that is probably not the best idea, but Dad looks so hopeful…

“Fine,” he relents. “But you’re only watching when we get there.”

Dad grins. “Deal.”

* * *

They’re bundled up to their teeth in furs when they reach the docks, his dad especially so. The ship—the same one Sokka arrived on months ago—is close enough to make out, barely ahead of the dark clouds gathering in the distance.

Sokka knows he should probably make a quick run over to where the other tribe members linger to alert them of the boat’s arrival, but any sense of duty vanishes when he spots a familiar figure standing by the rail of the ship.

“Katara!” he shouts, waving his hands. “Over here!”

He’s more than a little confused as to why she didn’t arrive on Appa; and when she walks down the gangplank, he doesn’t need brotherly instincts to tell that something is wrong.

“Katara?”

The glare on his sister’s face is positively _murderous._ The ice crumbles and cracks as she stomps over, and Sokka’s fairly convinced she’s well on her way to causing an avalanche.

“Hey,” he says when she reaches him and Dad. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” she repeats, voice laden with bitterness. “What’s going on is your _boyfriend_ has lost his La-forsaken mind!”

Sokka feels all the blood in his body rush to his face, and maybe there’s some extra plasma floating around because, when Dad speaks, he’s pretty sure he gets _redder._

“Boyfriend?”

Katara looks between the two of them in exasperation. “Seriously? I thought you said you were going to tell him!”

“I‘ve been busy,” Sokka says, tugging on his hood nervously.

The sentence comes out more like a question than anything, and the twin expressions of skepticism he’s met with have him shrinking deeper into his jacket.

“Sure,” Katara replies sarcastically.

“Hey,” Dad interjects. “Your brother’s been helping out plenty.”

Sokka grins triumphantly. Katara just rolls her eyes, hands planted firmly on her hips.

“Now, what’s this I hear about a boyfriend?”

Sokka gulps. “Uh…”

Katara smirks at his discomfort like the traitor she is.

“You know I accept you no matter what, right?” Dad asks.

“Well, yeah,” Sokka says, brow furrowing in confusion. Had that ever been up for debate?

“I just wanted to make sure you knew that,” he continues. “I know how the Fire Nation can be about these types of things.”

“Believe me,” Sokka mutters, his mind wandering to festival dances and secret passages, “I know.”

“I can’t believe he still hasn’t gotten rid of that stupid law,” Katara scoffs.

“And what? Have people rioting in the streets?”

“It’s better than being oppressed!”

Sokka throws his hands up in frustration. “Are you kidding me? If anyone found out about us, Ozai would be back on the throne in a _second.”_

“Stop being so dramatic!”

She’s practically yelling now, and, well...Sokka has never been one to back down from a sibling screaming match.

“Someone tries to kill him every fucking week, Katara! He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat. Spirits, he’s fucking terrified!”

Sokka was too engrossed in his shouting to notice it before, but Katara’s glower has softened to a look of concern.

“I didn’t know that,” she says, frowning. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

_(“I don’t need you to send me a fucking babysitter, Sokka! I can take care of myself.”)_

“Because he’s a stubborn asshole.”

Sokka scowls down at the ice, kicking at a loose snow pile and kind of wishing it was Zuko’s stupid fucking face.

“Sokka,” Dad says slowly. “Are you and Zuko…?”

Sokka sighs. “Yeah.”

“Huh.”

Dad sounds more thoughtful than upset, but if Sokka has learned anything, it’s to err on the side of caution.

“Is that okay?”

“I know Zuko and I have had our...differences,” he begins. ( _Understatement of the year,_ Sokka thinks wryly.) “But if he makes you happy, then I’m happy for you, son.”

It’s like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, a vice that he didn’t even realize was squeezing his chest finally loosening.

He bites his lip, trying to stop the wavering floodgate from releasing the sobs threatening to escape from his throat. It’s no use, though; the second he feels his dad’s arm wrap around him, any pretense of composure breaks.

“It’s alright,” Dad soothes as he clings to him.

“Thank you,” Sokka mumbles into the fabric of his parka. “I love you.”

“I love you too, son.”

Sokka sniffles when he eventually pulls away, covertly attempting to brush away the stray tears on his cheeks.

“Why don’t we go inside and get some lunch?” Dad suggests. “Then Katara can fill us in on what’s going on.”

Sokka nods and, with one last glance at the sea stretching out behind him, follows his family back towards the village.

* * *

“It doesn’t make sense,” Sokka says, poking at the remnants of his food. “Why would he withdraw?”

“I don’t know,” Katara replies as she places her empty bowl on the ground. “But he was a real jerk about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Aang and I went to talk to him, but his guards wouldn’t let us through. Then they attacked us, and he…” Katara trails off, swallowing as though bracing herself. “He hurt me.”

“He did _what?”_ Dad roars.

“He- he grabbed me and twisted my arms behind my back, and wouldn’t let go, even when I told him to, and then,” she pauses to sniffle and wipe at her teary eyes, “and then Aang airbended him away, and he shot fire at him, and—“

She breaks off into a gasping sob, her fingers reaching up to clutch at Gran-Gran’s betrothal necklace. Dad’s hands have curled into fists at his sides, and Sokka, no matter how hard he tries to put the pieces together in his head, doesn’t know _what_ to feel.

“Aang went into the Avatar state.” It’s barely a whisper, as though she’s afraid to say the words out loud. “He said...he said maybe Roku was right about keeping his promise.”

Sokka’s already off-the-rails train of thought screeches to a halt. “What promise?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Katara looks down at the flames flickering in the center of the floor. “I don’t know if it’s my place.”

“Katara,” Sokka says, voice thick with an overwhelming jumble of hurt and anger and fear. “What promise?”

“Last year,” she begins slowly, “when we first agreed to remove the colonies in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko asked Aang for a favor.”

“But I was with him all night!”

Katara’s somber expression flits into a small smirk.

“Oh, I know,” she teases. “We were in the room right next to yours.”

“Katara!” Sokka hisses, his face suddenly uncomfortably warm. “Dad is _right there.”_

He catches his dad’s amused grin out of the corner of his eye and groans, burying his head in his hands.

“If any Spirits want to strike me down,” he mumbles into his palms, “now would be a great time.”

“I’m sure you and Zuko know _all about_ great times—“

“Kids,” Dad interrupts. “That’s enough.”

If Sokka wasn’t so preoccupied with wallowing in his shame, he’d bow down to him in gratitude.

“Why don’t you finish with your story?” Dad suggests.

“Yeah,” Sokka echoes, slowly peeking his eyes out from behind his hands to find Katara sticking her tongue out at him.

“Fine,” she concedes, her expression falling back into its previous gravity. “But you’re not going to like it.”

While Sokka definitely already knows that, her words still send a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Zuko said he needed a safety net, and that if he- if he started to turn into Ozai, he wanted Aang to…”

She opens and closes her mouth a few times, as though her tongue can’t seem to form the words.

“He wanted him to what?” Sokka prods.

Katara turns him and bites her lip, her eyes shining with unshed tears (and _Spirits,_ she looks just like Mom).

“He wanted Aang to end him.”

_“What?”_

“Aang didn’t want to!” Katara is quick to assure, her words mere static under the loud rushing of blood in Sokka’s ears, “but Zuko made him _promise_ and—“

 _“So?_ He could’ve said no!”

“He tried to!”

“Well, _clearly_ he didn’t try hard enough!”

“Just because you’re in love with him doesn’t mean he won’t act like—“ She cuts herself off with a gasp, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

“Finish that sentence,” Sokka says, his voice dripping with something _murderous_. “I fucking dare you.”

“Sokka, I didn’t mean—“

_“Finish it!”_

Katara flinches back, her breaths coming in short pants. Sokka would feel bad, if it wasn’t for the venomous bullshit she was spewing.

He can see the moment the fear in her expression shutters and morphs into a glare hard enough to rival his own. When she speaks, it cuts like a knife.

“Like his _father!”_

She sneers as she spits it out, leering in sick satisfaction at the way Sokka’s ribs are caving in. The world around him is collapsing, his sister’s words reverberating in his skull. It’s an endless, torturous cycle, his brain torn in a frantic loop of _“like his father”_ and _“in love”_ and fuck, he doesn’t know which is causing his serious heart palpatations, but he’s about to go into cardiac arrest regardless.

She’s wrong, and she’s not, and it’s all a massive jumble ricocheting through his brain and his lungs and his chest and he can barely even _breathe_ as he chokes out that he’s leaving.

The wind is whipping the snow into a frenzy, an endless expanse of freezing white stinging his face and burning his eyes. His visibility is practically nonexistent as he stumbles towards what he presumes is the dock, letting muscle memory guide him through the tundra.

His once-shattered leg throbs in time with the frantic beating of his heart, aching in the cold until it buckles beneath him.

The snow flies up in flurries around him as he loses his footing. He flails in desperate attempt to pinwheel his arms into keeping himself upright, but falls anyways. When he hits the frigid earth beneath him, all he feels is numbness.

He closes his eyes and lets himself sink.

(At least, he tries to, until Katara wrenches him out of the ground with some creative swears and drags him back through a weird, magic tunnel she created to keep out the ice.

Yet even when she sits him down in front of the fire and heals his now-twisted ankle, he can’t help but think a part of him is still stuck out in the cold.)

(He doesn’t know if he wants it back.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: a certain reunion...
> 
> also please no katara hate, she’s doing her best


	25. combustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m leaving tomorrow,” Sokka announces one morning.
> 
> The glow of the water Katara is swirling over Dad’s torso vanishes, and she just barely manages to bend it back into her waterskin before it splashes all over his bare skin. “What?”
> 
> or: sokka returns to the fire nation. zuko is Unwell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for ableism & mild violence (including a brief mention of blood)

The following days pass Sokka by in a blur. He counts the seconds in time with his half-conscious blinks, measures the minutes in tandem with the howling of the wind outside. Katara had moved his belongings to their dad’s home after his snowstorm foray so that she could better heal both of their injuries, and infuriatingly refused to spend all of her energy on Dad rather than the aftermath of Sokka’s stupidity.

(He’s sure she thinks it’s a gesture of apology, but Sokka finds it much more akin to a punishment.)

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he announces one morning.

The glow of the water Katara is swirling over Dad’s torso vanishes, and she just barely manages to bend it back into her waterskin before it splashes all over his bare skin. “What?”

“I’m leaving,” Sokka repeats, “tomorrow.”

“But the storm—“ Katara begins to protest.

“—will have mostly cleared,” Sokka finishes for her. “I checked.”

“You can’t just—“

“Katara,” Dad says warningly. “Sokka can make his own decisions.”

“Yeah,” Katara mutters. “Stupid ones.”

She relents after a moment of tense silence. “ _Fine_. But you have to let me finish healing your leg first.”

The fierce look of determination on both his sister and father’s faces has any objection dying in Sokka’s throat.

He groans, props his leg up, and lets Katara get to work.

* * *

The following morning is filled with an endless litany of teary farewells. Sokka swears he’s never met some of these people in his life, yet they all fawn over him like they’ve known him since the cradle.

“Okay, okay,” he says as Gran-Gran squeezes his cheeks for the 50th time. “I’m not dying, jeez.”

“Can I not be sad that my grandson is leaving?” she asks innocently.

Sokka groans. “I’m coming back eventually, you know.”

“And I am an old woman,” she replies. “Who knows how long I have left?”

Tui and La, this woman is going to be the death of him.

“Katara’s here with her magic water. You’ll be fine.”

Gran-Gran clucks her tongue, but does finally release her claw-like grip on the poor, chapped skin of his face. “Be safe out there. And don’t let that Fire Lord boss you around!”

He swears he hears Katara snort somewhere off to the side, and does his best to telepathically communicate to her that his blush is due to the cold and _nothing else_.

He valiantly pretends not to hear her chuckling as she hugs him one last time.

“I really am sorry,” she whispers.

He sighs, squeezing her tightly. “I know.”

Saying goodbye to his dad is the hardest. They’d already cried in private the night before, mourning the end of quite possibly the longest time they’ve spent together since Sokka was a kid. Yet the Sokka that spent the last month caring for his father and his tribe is not the same Sokka that built snow forts and got fish hooks stuck in his fingers; he is a warrior, an adult—a man whose duty to the world reaches far beyond the South Pole.

(He still has to brush away stray tears as he boards the ship for the Earth Kingdom, waving back to his family and keeping his tear-blurry vision on the shore even after it fades into white, snowy nothingness on the horizon.)

* * *

He’s glad his (super manly) sobbing has subsided by the time they reach the port, because he needs all his wits about him to process the utter chaos taking place around him—because while Katara told him that people were upset by the situation in Yu Dao, she’d failed to mention they were _literally rioting in the streets._

“What the hell is going on?” he asks the woman tying the boat off on the docks.

The woman gives him a once-over with unimpressed green, Earth Kingdom eyes, very clearly questioning his intelligence.

“I’m coming from the South Pole,” he scrambles to elaborate, “so I haven’t seen much news.”

The woman purses her lips. “You heard about what happened to the Harmony Restoration Movement?”

Sokka’s stomach drops. He nods.

“Well,” she continues, “now that the Fire Lord backed out, King Kuei has to take matters into his own hands.”

Sokka freezes, his foot dangling a few inches above the wooden planks he’d been in the process of climbing onto. “What?”

The woman chuckles. “Yeah, I was shocked too. Took him long enough to grow a spine.”

“But I thought they had another meeting planned,” Sokka says, thinking back to the jumble of information Katara had dumped on him.

“They did. But Kuei said he was tired of being lied to and seen as weak, so he’s sending the army in to enforce Harmony.”

Sokka gulps. “The Fire Lord will see that as a declaration of war.”

The woman arches her brow. “Why do you think our people have taken to the streets?”

Fuck, Sokka thinks he’s going to be sick. He pushes past the woman so that he doesn’t accidentally lose his lunch at her feet, offering what he hopes comes off as a nod of gratitude in his wake. His mind buzzes as he sprints to the other side of the dock where the ship to Caldera awaits.

“Please,” he gasps out when he reaches the right port. “We need to go now.”

The captain frowns. “We don’t depart for another three hours, son.”

Sokka shakes his head frantically. “You don’t understand. It’s an emergency!”

The captain remains unimpressed.

“I’m- I’m an ambassador,” he hurriedly explains. “I have urgent information for the Fire Lord.”

He gets another look of scrutiny for his desperation. (Yet another reason why he’s grown to hate this part of the Earth Kingdom.)

“Fine,” the captain says after a moment of deliberation. “But only because another ship is already coming later today.”

“Thank you,” Sokka says breathlessly. “Thank you so much. I’ll tell Zuko to give you a raise, or name a statue after you—whatever you want.”

“How about you just quit yapping and get on?”

Sokka nods so hard he feels his teeth clack together. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

* * *

Caldera has somehow managed not to burn to the ground in Sokka’s absence. He’d say he was shocked, but in reality it makes perfect sense the moment he manages to track down Zuko in the palace; because while his nation has managed to survive, its leader clearly has not.

Zuko’s cheekbones are nauseatingly defined, sharp enough that Sokka swears they’d cut right through his lips should he try to kiss him. He looks even deader than he’d seemed after being shot full of Azula’s lightning, frailer than when he’d come to the Western Air Temple after months of living as a refugee. The stray strands of hair not secured in his topknot hang limply around his face, framing the dry, cracked surface of his scar and the deep bag under his right eye.

“Fuck,” Sokka whispers, his feet unconsciously rooting him to the spot.

Zuko’s gaze, previously trained on his shoes, snaps up to meet Sokka’s.

His face flickers through a whole host of emotions, almost too quickly for Sokka to comprehend. He sees surprise, and joy, and anger, and sadness, and then...nothing. It’s as if all feelings have been sucked out of his too-hollow body, a mask as unmoving as the rough skin of his scar.

“Ambassador Sokka,” he says flatly. “You’re back.”

Sokka blinks. “That’s it? No welcome home?”

“I was under the impression you were just there.”

“What?”

“Your home,” Zuko repeats coldly. “The South Pole.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Zuko’s jaw tenses. “Nothing. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

He brushes past without another word, turning into one of the palace’s numerous hidden corridors and leaving Sokka to stare dumbly at the empty hallway in his wake.

Don’t get Sokka wrong, he knew better than to expect to be swept up in a passionate reunion kiss. But being brushed off so deliberately? What the actual fuck was that about?

He clenches his fists at his sides and stalks off towards his quarters. Zuko can’t avoid him forever; and when Sokka finds him, he’s going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

* * *

Zuko slams the door to his office shut with quite a bit more force than necessary. The fire under his skin itches to be set free; to consume everything around him, himself included.

A shower of sparks escapes past his lips before he clenches his mouth shut in a scowl. He’s already let Sokka invoke a shameful amount of emotion from him, and he’ll be damned if he manages to wrench more weakness out of him now.

Besides, what right does Sokka have to make him feel guilty? _He_ was the one to ignore Zuko’s letters. _He_ was the one with the audacity to stroll back into Zuko’s life and act like everything was fine.

(Because it wasn’t. It _isn’t_. It’s cruel and it’s wrong.)

He shoves the flames threatening to burst forth back into his chest. He doesn’t have time for this.

He has a war to avoid.

* * *

It isn’t exactly difficult for Sokka to track Zuko down; he does, after all, spend the majority of his time in the same few places. The guard posted outside the door—behind which Zuko surely sits working at his desk—all but confirms his suspicion.

“Welcome back, Ambassador,” Lyru says as he approaches.

“Thanks. Listen, I need to talk to Zuko.”

“I’m sorry, but the Fire Lord requests he not be disturbed.”

“But it’s an emergency!”

Lyru bites her lip. “I cannot disobey my orders.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” Sokka groans.

“What’s _going on_ is you’re harassing my guards!”

Sokka flinches back at the volume of Zuko’s voice, not having noticed him cracking the door open.

“Hey,” Sokka greets weakly. “Just the guy I wanted to talk to.”

Zuko scowls and remains silent. 

“I, uh, have a message for you,” Sokka continues.

“Why don’t you just write me a letter like everyone else?” Zuko asks bitterly. “Oh wait, I forgot: you don’t write letters, do you?”

The ever-present desire to talk hardwired into Sokka’s brain fizzles out momentarily, because _what?_

“Shall I give you two some space?” Lyru asks hesitantly.

“No need,” Zuko replies. “The ambassador was just leaving.”

His tone leaves no room for argument, but Sokka must be sorely lacking in self-preservation skills, because he jams his foot in the door before Zuko can close it all the way.

“No,” he says. “We’re talking about this now.”

Zuko’s right eye narrows to match his left. “Get out.”

“I have something important to—“

“Get out!” Zuko interrupts angrily. “As your Fire Lord, I’m ordering you to leave me the hell alone!”

His outburst leaves him panting, chest heaving and radiating a concerning amount of heat.

“Fine,” Sokka snaps. “Fuck you, too.”

He leaves without another word.

* * *

He spends the next few days holed up in his quarters, using up the last few moments of peace—at least, what _should have been_ peace—before he has to return to his actual job. It’s a necessary break, because he’s only now convinced he probably won’t throttle Zuko on sight the next time he sees him, council meetings be damned.

(He’s also learned that Zuko is very much aware of the situation with King Kuei, so he apparently has no real use of Sokka’s presence whatever.)

Then he wakes up to a stupid fucking letter slipped under his door, and he’s two seconds from throwing hands with whatever servant decided to disrespect his time off before he realizes just whose handwriting he’s staring at.

 _So,_ he thinks as he rereads the note. _Zuko wants to talk. Alone._

_This oughta be good._

* * *

Zuko’s hands shake as he paces the hilltop. He hasn’t seen Sokka since he sent him the invitation yesterday, and he’s half convinced he’s going to be stood up. (It is, to be fair, the least he deserves.)

Maybe it was a mistake, inviting him here. He seems to be making a lot of those lately.

He resigns himself to wandering back and forth, his feet flattening the same grass that he and Sokka had picnicked on what feels like a lifetime ago. (It’s also, embarrassingly, the same grass upon which he once sat beside Mai in their farce of a date years ago, back when Zuko had convinced himself he’d found redemption.)

 _Yes,_ Zuko concludes. _This was definitely a bad idea._

He knows he should go back inside to finish his endless backlog of work, but his feet refuse to move. It must be some new form of torturous self-sabotage, waiting for someone who clearly has no intentions of coming.

He’s glad he sent his guards away; he’s dangerously close to a mental breakdown, and the last thing he needs is witnesses to his pity party.

He sighs and stares up at the stars.

* * *

Zuko looks angelic under the moonlight.

It pains Sokka to acknowledge it, but it’s the truth; the man looks like a damn painting, a kaleidoscope of beautiful contours and colors that Sokka can’t even put into words.

Fuck, he just wants to kiss him senseless.

(He can’t, though, because he needs answers before the vice squeezing his lungs tightens past the brink of collapse. A point of no return that Sokka knows he can’t survive.)

“Hey,” he says after another moment of shameless (or is it shameful?) staring. “You said you wanted to talk?”

“Sokka,” Zuko breathes, turning to face him. “You came.”

“Well, yeah,” Sokka replies. “I wouldn’t pass up on the chance to know what the actual fuck was up with you earlier.”

It’s clearly the wrong thing to say, because the openness in Zuko’s expression immediately closes off. 

(Yet it’s also the right thing to say, because it brings Sokka a reprieve, however brief, from the anger and guilt crushing him.)

“You’re one to talk,” Zuko says with a scoff. “You didn’t even bother telling me you were alive.”

His earlier words ring in Sokka’s head: _“I forgot: you don’t write letters, do you?”_

“Shit,” Sokka mumbles. “I’m sorry, I just—there was a lot going on, okay?”

Zuko looks unconvinced, and it ignites a spark of rage deep within him.

“Besides,” he adds, _“I_ wasn’t the one keeping secrets.”

“Keeping secrets?” Zuko repeats incredulously.

“Yeah. I saw your letter from Azula.”

Zuko’s eyes widen. “You went through my mail?”

“I was looking out for you!” Sokka protests. “Something you clearly needed if you’re talking to that psychopath.”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about my sister like that,” Zuko snarls.

Sokka throws his hands up in exasperation because, well, Zuko pretty much just proved his point!

“Look,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “I came here because you said you wanted to talk, not to play games.”

“I’m not playing games. In case you forgot, I’m running an entire fucking country!”

“Yeah,” Sokka snorts. “Poorly.”

Zuko clenches his fists so tightly at his sides that Sokka swears he can see them smoking. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You look like shit,” Sokka replies coldly. “And you’re about to go to war with the goddamn Earth Kingdom!

“Oh!” he tacks on before Zuko can butt in. _“_ _And_ you attacked my sister!”

Zuko groans and scrubs his hand down his face. “It wasn’t like that!”

“Really? Because from what Katara told me, you were acting like—“

“Hold on,” Zuko cuts in.

Sokka pauses at the interruption, irritation spiking. “What?”

“I hear something.”

Sokka gives him a whole ten seconds before brushing it off as nothing more than a distraction tactic. “You can’t lie your way out of this, Zuko.”

“I’m not lying!”

“I hate to break it to you,” Sokka replies, “but there’s nothing out here. And this is coming from a guy with two functional ears.”

Zuko’s glower deepens, and yeah, Sokka probably deserves that for his inadvertent dig at Zuko’s disabilities. (It does little to stop him from feeling pissed as hell regardless.)

“Now you’re ignoring me?” he scoffs when Zuko doesn’t respond. “Real mature.”

“Be _quiet,_ ” Zuko hisses, his eyes darting around the darkened hillside.

Sokka gives another cursory glance and sees nothing. Nada. Zilch.

“You’re such an _asshole,”_ Sokka snaps. “What the hell is your problem?”

“I’m telling you, there’s someone here!”

Sokka sighs. “If you don’t want to talk this out, then I’m leaving.”

“No, Sokka, wait—“

He doesn’t get a chance to hear the rest of Zuko’s plea, his senses fading as something solid slams into the back of his head.

Everything goes dark.

* * *

Kei Lo had heard the rumors in the halls of the palace.

 _“Ambassador Sokka is back,”_ the other servants had whispered. _“He and Lord Zuko had a falling out.”_

He’d seen the letter, deposited in his sweaty hands by Taizin.

 _“Deliver this to the Ambassador of the Southern Water Tribe,”_ the chief of staff had ordered. _“I have more pressing matters to attend to.”_

He’d relayed its message to his boss that night by the flicker of candlelight.

 _“This is our chance,”_ he’d told Master Ukano. _“We can finally use our leverage to take down the traitor.”_

The moon is bright tonight. According to Jora, it’s an auspicious symbol; and with the Water Tribe savage knocked out at his feet, Kei Lo thinks he might be right.

Zuko’s throwing flames at the two masked benders Kei Lo had invited to accompany him on his quest—one which under no circumstances would he fail this time. Jora and the other firebender are more or less holding their own, but it’s clear they’re far from subduing the traitor. Kei Lo knows he shouldn’t be too surprised—he had, after all, selected his recruits primarily for their stealth skills, not combat—but the uneven match still fills him with a heady sense of guilt and fear.

It’s time for him to level the playing field.

He drops down into a crouch beside the ambassador’s unconscious body, dragging him upwards so that his back is flush against Kei Lo’s chest. His head lolls against his shoulder, exposing a throat which he easily brings his knife up to. 

He feels the rush of power in his veins. It’s electrifying.

“Stop!” he yells. “Stand down.”

Even through the narrow slits in his mask serving as eye-holes, Kei Lo can see the color drain from the Fire Lord’s face.

“Why don’t we just- just talk about this?” Zuko asks nervously.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be making demands, _traitor_ ,” Jora spits from behind him.

He nods subtly to Kei Lo, refueling his dwindling confidence.

“Yeah,” he echoes. “Do as I say, or the savage gets it.”

He presses the blade ever-so-slightly into the ambassador’s flesh, feeling the way the metal sinks smoothly past the surface. His hostage, still unmoving, doesn’t so much as flinch as blood begins to drip; the Fire Lord, on the other hand, shudders so forcefully that the flames engulfing his fists extinguish, plunging the hillside into near darkness.

“Please,” Zuko gasps, voice ragged. “I surrender, I- he has nothing to do with this, _please—“_

“Kneel,” Kei Lo commands.

Zuko’s knees hit the ground in an instant, and it’s the most beautiful sound Kei Lo’s ever heard. He nods at Jora over the imposter’s head, and watches with sick satisfaction as he slaps a square of chemical-soaked cloth over Zuko’s nose and mouth.

The Fire Lord doesn’t struggle, and Kei Lo realizes the traitor’s eyes don’t leave the savage’s face until they roll up into the back of his head. It makes him sick.

“He’s out,” Jora announces. “We’ll take him back to Master Ukano. You finish clean-up.”

He jerks his head towards the other firebender, who lifts Zuko like a sack of potatoes and drapes him over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Kei Lo shouts, stopping Jora in his tracks. “What should I do with him?”

He gestures to the savage’s limp body, once again spread out on the ground.

Jora just grins.

“Kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me inventing chloroform in the avatar universe...
> 
> i’ve had this chapter planned for so long, please lmk what you think (& sorry for all the pov changes and time skips lol)


	26. inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wakes to the stench of mildew and rust.
> 
> or: major zuko angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild violence, homophobia, drugging, references to sex & murder, descriptions of drowning & abuse, unintentional self-harm, passive suicidality, and a ridiculous amount of parentheses
> 
> this is probably the darkest chapter of this fic, so i’ve put a plot summary in the end notes (you can jump down to them by clicking comments at the top). fr tho, please don’t read if it will be bad for your mental health

Zuko wakes to the stench of mildew and rust.

He blinks blearily, trying to get his vision to stop spinning. From the few moments of clarity he manages to wrangle from his uncooperative eyes, he finds that he’s in some sort of cell. It’s gross and damp and humid, and he would very much prefer to be literally anywhere else.

He’s struck with an intense bout of vertigo when he attempts to sit up, off-kilter and dazed. His body lists dangerously to the side, and he reaches out to catch himself before his face hits the dirt. It’s no use: his hands are tied behind his back.

He lands hard on his side, enough so that he can already feel a bruise forming. The contact sends his right shoulder wrenching backwards with a nasty crack that tugs painfully at the cords wrapped around his wrists. He’s bound by what feels like a thick, definitely flammable rope; he can’t tell if he should be insulted by this or not.

It takes embarrassingly more effort than usual, but he manages to summon fire to his palms. The binding catches easily, and he coaxes the flames across the fibers.

It burns.

(It shouldn’t.)

The heat sears uncontrollably across his skin, which is already rubbed raw from his struggling. He should be able to do this. He trained the Avatar, for god’s sake!

(But his flesh is burning, putrid smoke and scalding fire so intimately familiar that he nearly gags.)

He lets the flames flicker out. The smell of melted skin doesn’t fade.

* * *

When two masked weirdos enter Zuko’s cell later, he has more of his wits about him. More specifically, he remembers the ambush on the hillside. The blade digging into Sokka’s skin. The hard earth reverberating through his knees as he dropped instinctively, overwhelmed by the urge to _protect._

“Who the hell are you?”

He means the dyanmic duo here, because he sure as shit knows what organization hides behind the Dragon Emperor masks. (They did blow up his carriage, after all.)

“Your downfall.”

Well, that’s cryptic as shit.

“Fuck off.”

The comment, forced past his painfully dry vocal cords, earns him a kick to the sternum.

“You think you’re so tough?” one of the goons snaps.

“I think you’re all idiots,” Zuko replies.

He grunts at the boot once again connecting with his chest. (It may have been expected, but it still hurt like a bitch.)

The second guy—the one not roughing him up—pulls a flask out of his robes. “For you, _Your Majesty.”_

(Agni, what is _with_ these New Ozai people and their obsession with using his title as some bizarre form of insult?)

“No way.”

The man snorts. “You think you have a choice?”

He nods to his buddy, who proceeds to slot his fingers in Zuko’s hair and _pull._

Zuko hisses at the sharp tugging at his scalp. He tries to wriggle away, but whatever they poisoned him with earlier has left him pitifully weak. He wishes he could firebend at them without burning himself in the process; sure, he considers it, but his chi is so drained right now that he doubts he can even make sparks.

He can only shake his head in a lame attempt to dislodge the hand grabbing at his cheeks. He refuses to open his mouth—whatever is in the bottle now terrifyingly close to his face is clealy bad news—but when fingers pinch his nose shut, he’s left with no other choice.

The second his lips part for a desperate inhale, the top of the flask is shoved past them. He gags on the liquid pouring past his tongue. He’s suffocating and nauseous, involuntarily inviting sickly sweet water into his insides.

When the bottle is finally pulled away, a hand is slapped over his mouth before he can spit anything out. His captors’ attention to his throat gives him chills, and he knows they won’t release him until he swallows.

He eventually gives in. It tastes like failure.

He feels his eyelids growing heavier. Sees black spots clouding the edges of his vision.

He fights to stay awake, because these are _enemies,_ and he can’t let his guard down around them.

But when the vice grip on his hair slackens and he hits the ground, he finds he can’t fight it anymore.

He slips into the darkness.

* * *

_He sits across from his father. Ozai’s golden eyes flicker in the torchlight, assessing his son cooly over the rim of his tea cup._

_Zuko stares down at his own tea, the liquid rippling in time with the slight tremor in his hand._

_“Do you remember those family vacations we used to take on Ember Island?” Father asks._

_Sand between his toes. Sun beating down on his back. Azula giggling and splashing. Mother and Father lounging in the shade of an umbrella._

_“Once, at the beach, we saw a hawk attacking a turtle-crab by the water. You couldn't have been older than three.”_

_He remembers fear. Anger. Determination._

_“You ran as fast as you could to rescue that turtle-crab.” Father scoffs, face both in front of and behind bars. “Even then, you possessed an odd affinity for the weak.”_

_The turtle-crab wriggles in his grip. Snips at his too-small hands. He’s stuck, frozen with indecision. (Why can he never make a decision?)_

_If he saves the turtle-crab, he condemns the hawk to starve. (He is intimately acquainted with the pain of hunger clawing at his insides, shrinking him into nothingness. Spending sleepless nights tucked into foliage, shriveling and shivering beneath the Earth Kingdom’s stars.)_

_(If he spent too long thinking about how the same constellations shone over his homeland, he’d combust into a nova of his own.)_

_Who is he to determine who lives or dies? Even now, staring at his father, he doesn’t know if the Avatar was right in allowing him to survive._

_“Before you could reach a decision, a giant wave washed over you and carried you out into the ocean.”_

_Saltwater stings his eyes as he’s dragged under with the current. He kicks his stubby legs in desperation, but the waves refuse to relent. There’s water filling up his lungs. He can’t breathe, he can’t_ breathe.

_Strong arms wrap around his shoulders and pull him up to the surface. They cradle his trembling body as he’s carried to the shore, shaking and choking on the liquid trapped in his throat. He’s deposited into his mother’s arms, soft and familiar. She holds him and pats his back as he vomits up the seawater for what feels like hours._

_(He’s experienced the painful aftermath of drowning more times than he cares to admit. He feels the phantom chill of arctic water beneath the North Pole, the tsunami trapped inside him in the Forgetful Valley.)_

_Mother’s hands are soft. He thinks his father’s were, too, way back when. It’s a foreign concept._

_He has a vague memory of Father recounting this story in the bowels of the prison under the pretense of advice. It all seems so far away, memories slipping through his fingers._

_(He wonders if the turtle-crab survived the violent crashing of the waves. He wonders if the hawk found prey elsewhere.)_

_(He wonders when the family that spent summers on the beach finally fractured beyond repair.)_

* * *

The next time he returns to awareness, it’s to the stinging aftertaste of a backhand.

He feels even more disoriented than before, the swirling edges of his dreams encroaching past the fringes of reality.

He blinks once, twice. The owner of the hand now imprinted in red on his cheek isn’t wearing a mask. He peers down at Zuko with an expression of disgust that looks eerily familiar.

“You’re Mai’s father,” he eventually reasons.

“You can call me Master Ukano, _brat,”_ the man spits.

Zuko scowls. “What the hell do you want from me?”

“How about some respect?” Ukano snaps.

“In your dreams.”

Ukano scoffs. “Insolent boy. This is why we must restore honor to the throne.”

The conclusion Zuko’s brain draws is a sluggish one, but judging by the wicked grin on Ukano’s face when he speaks, he knows it’s correct.

“You’re trying to free my father.”

“That’s right, _traitor._ And you’re going to die kneeling at his feet.”

“But then…” He frowns, trying to concentrate past the exhaustion and drugs addling his brain. “Why haven’t you done it already?”

Ukano’s answer is suspiciously clipped: “Now is not the right time.”

Ever so slowly, Zuko shakes his head.

“No,” he says thoughtfully. “You’re just too stupid to break him out.”

The slap he receives in response only worsens the nauseating pounding in his head, and Zuko thinks he might be sick. _Wouldn’t it be such a shame,_ he considers wryly, _if I were to throw up all over Ukano’s nasty shoes?_

“Listen here, you little shit,” Ukano hisses, dragging Zuko up to his knees by the collar of his tunic. “You may have half the nation fooled, but once we’re done with you, they’ll see you for what you truly are.”

“And what, pray tell,” Zuko asks, his glare unwavering, “is that?”

“A coward,” Ukano sneers; his grip on Zuko tightens. “And a traitor.”

“Peace isn’t cowardly.”

 _“And,”_ Ukano continues, as though Zuko hadn’t spoken at all, “a filthy, Agni-forsaken sodomite.”

Zuko tries not to flinch almost as desperately as he tries to keep his voice level when he replies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ukano’s features twist into a grin, yellowing teeth and hot breath far too close to Zuko’s face. “We saw you with that savage last night.”

“Like I said,” Zuko replies tightly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ambassador Sokka and I were simply discussing negotiations when your _cult_ attacked us.”

“My men and I have been watching you for some time, _Lord Zuko.”_ He spits the title out like a curse, nearly as damning as his accusations. “What you two do in your chambers is an abomination.”

Zuko’s breath catches in his throat, each and every one of the deep-seeded insecurities he’d thought he vanquished suddenly bubbling up to the surface with a vengeance.

He swallows them back like the bitter vomit threatening to burn straight through his esophagus. “You’re delusional.” 

(Can Ukano tell he’s lying through his clenched, aching teeth? Can he hear the rough scrape of molars and incisors, the hollow echo it sends reverberating through his trembling jaw?)

“At least I didn’t pledge myself over as the Water Tribe’s _bitch.”_

The fire in Zuko’s veins—despite being dampened by whatever cocktail of poison they forced into his system—flares.

“Excuse me?” he snarls.

“Don’t you remember that night after the Fire Lily Festival? My spies certainly do.”

Zuko’s blood, once overwhelmingly hot, freezes.

Ukano shakes his head in mock disappointment. “You should have heeded our warning to cancel when you had the chance. Maybe then we wouldn’t have caught you in such a...compromising position.”

The connection between Fung and these terrorists—between Agni-knows-how-many Ozai loyalists and those he thought he could trust—barely registers in the rapidly firing synapses of Zuko’s brain, because they’d seen him. They'd _seen him._

They’d watched him bare himself to Sokka, submit to him and the blasphemous desires of his body. They’d watched him spit in Agni’s face and moan in pleasure as he did so, committing treason in what he thought to be secrecy.

They’d witnessed him break the very law he still hadn’t abolished because he was afraid he wouldn’t survive the backlash. (Because he was afraid that maybe the decree wasn’t wrong in the first place.)

“You have no proof.” He’s sure the tremors that he can’t keep from wracking his body continue to undermine any of the conviction he attempts to muster, but he can’t back down.

“You sacrificed yourself for him,” Ukano says.

“Because he has nothing to do with this!”

Ukano raises a brow, as though Zuko has only proven his point. (Maybe he’s right; maybe Zuko doesn’t care if he is.)

“I must say,” Ukano muses, leering like a predator over its prey, “he was hardly worth the effort it took to slit his throat.”

The world shudders to a halt, screeching like the groaning metal of his ship as Zhao obliterated it. He can’t hear, can’t see, can’t _think_ , his mind a tangle of denial and wrong and _no._

“No,” he says, his voice nearly inaudible over the ringing in his ears.

Ukano simply chuckles.

 _“No!”_ Zuko repeats, louder this time. “You’re lying!”

His words come out punctuated with a twisted snarl, spraying vitriolic spittle on Ukano’s too-smug face. The man recoils in disgust, releasing his hold on Zuko’s robes and sending him crashing to the ground.

Zuko hears rather than feels the crack of his head slamming into the dirt, trapped somewhere far outside of his body. The impact rattles his already spinning vision, exacerbating the migraine that pulses just above the numbness pervading him.

It’s worse than burning at his father’s hand, worse than the flesh of his face that melted like candle wax; it’s worse than seeing the broken pieces of his sister’s psyche, shattered by violence and pride and war.

It’s a new kind of pain, a nefarious wildfire in his veins fueled by a desperate rage. The knowledge that he’ll never be able to apologize to Sokka, or tell him that he loves— _loved_ —him is an oppressive weight on his shoulders, tight and crushing and hurtful in all the ways he deserves.

(Would his friends ever speak to him again once they realize Sokka’s blood is on his hands? Would he even have the strength to face them at all?)

Maybe it’s fitting, that he’ll die at Ozai’s feet—one last chance to finish off the pathetic son he’s already tried so hard to kill. (Maybe it would have been better if he’d succeeded in the first place.)

“You know,” Ukano adds conversationally, the leer never leaving his face, “I was honestly surprised when they told me those savages bleed like the rest of us. I guess you learn something new every day.”

The only sound Zuko can make is a roar, an expulsion of all the air trapped in his collapsing lungs. The noise is strangled, aching with the fire of a thousand suns and tearing up the raw tendons of his throat.

He’s choking, breath hitching and catching on the sheer _emptiness_ threatening to drown him from within. He’s barely able to move his muscles enough to curl onto his side, his scarred cheek pressing into the dirt as though the pebbly terrain will somehow swallow him whole.

Ukano scoffs and kicks Zuko in the stomach, leaving him wheezing. “Some Fire Lord you are.”

Zuko doesn’t bother replying, the disparaging comment being the least of what he deserves. How did he screw up so badly? Why, fucking _why,_ was he stupid enough to think he could get what he wanted without repurcussions?

 _“You will learn respect,”_ his father had said, _“and suffering will be your teacher.”_

Zuko should have listened. He should never have challenged that general, or stood up to his father. He should never have entertained the idea of running a nation for even a millisecond. He was delusional, thinking he could change the world and its ways.

He’d take another hundred years of war, he thinks, if it meant Sokka could live _._ He’d give his own life a million times over, and then some.

“You’re lying,” he repeats weakly, as though that will somehow make his pitiful assertion true.

Ukano just spits on him before exiting his cell, the lock echoing like a death sentence as it clicks into place.

Zuko waits until he’s out of sight before he lets his sad attempt at a stoic facade crumble. It’s almost funny, the way he acts like he has any dignity left to protect.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers through his tears, as though Sokka will somehow hear him. (As though he somehow deserves his forgiveness.) “I’m so, so sorry.”

When his masked captors return some indeterminate amount of time later with a familiar flask, Zuko doesn’t fight it. (He thinks they taunt him for the way he easily opens his mouth—barbed words cutting through him with the sharp realization that Ukano told his followers of Zuko’s greatest shame—but the memory fades as his mind once again begins to quiet.)

The drugs crawl through his veins like molasses, lethargically dragging him down. Is the sludge slowing the beating of his heart, or is it all in his head? He wonders if the poison will kill him before his father gets the chance. (He finds he doesn’t much care either way.)

The men leave him in his cell with new patches of black and blue blooming beneath his robes and blood dripping from his newly split lip. It may just be the drugs, but the scarlet on their knuckles is the prettiest thing Zuko’s seen all day.

It’s a welcome relief when he’s pulled back into unconsciousness, darkness enveloping him like an old, comforting friend. (He probably doesn’t deserve the kindness.)

He drifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh...sorry?
> 
> summary: zuko wakes up after being kidnapped by the new ozai society. he tries and fails to escape, and is drugged and attacked. he dreams about a conversation with his father. later, ukano comes in and explains the society wants to free ozai from prison and put him back on the throne. he says some super homophobic shit, then tells zuko that sokka is dead.


	27. hubris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing he notices is that he’s sore all over. Like, unabashedly-groaning-in-discomfort, flattened-by-the-underside-of-a-carriage sore.
> 
> or: guess who’s back, back again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (shady’s back, tell a friend)
> 
> cw for allusions to sex & abuse

The first thing he notices is that he’s sore all over. Like, unabashedly-groaning-in-discomfort, flattened-by-the-underside-of-a-carriage sore.

The second thing he realizes is that he’s shivering and suspiciously damp.

The third thing he discovers is that he has absolutely no idea what’s going on.

“Well, fuck.”

There’s a fierce crick in his neck, and what feels like muddy, disgusting earth plastered to his back. It is not, to put it simply, ideal.

He scrubs at his eyes as he wills himself further into consciousness; a painful, very much not enjoyable consciousness, but consciousness nonetheless. Sensation slowly trickles back into the periphery of his awareness, and as he regains more of his faculties, he finds the story that his weary body tells him is on the fast-track to an unhappy ending.

He reaches for any sort of clue as to what’s going on or where he is, but his brain draws a blank. It doesn’t help that his head is pounding like all hell, a miserable rhythm of dread and hollow ringing.

Guess it’s kick-Sokka-while-he’s-down day yet again.

(...Because he _is_ Sokka, right? S-o-k-k-a, Sokka? Rhymes with -okka? That sounds like it’s probably him.)

(He’s just going to roll with it, but in the off-chance he’s wrong, he hopes the real Sokka forgives him for what’s probably going to be a lot of dragging his good name through the dirt.)

 _Ugh_. He knows he needs to get up and figure out what the hell is going on, but the ache in every single one of his bones warns him that putting any pressure on his legs would be a _really_ bad idea.

He does it anyways, because stubbornness has always been his strong suit. (Is that the hubris of this tragedy? Is it what takes down the devilishly handsome hero?)

The lack of a wall to support himself on as he stands is yet another cruel trick of fate, but he refuses to fall on his ass. He nearly breaks that resolution the moment his legs threaten to buckle underneath him, and yikes, he does _not_ need that sort of embarrassment right now (or, as his disgustingly soggy pants remind him, any more stains on his clothing).

He hobbles his way up what seems like some sort of hill. His body protests every step, and he has to stop frequently to rub warmth back into his numbed-out arms. Where the actual fuck is he?

 _The Fire Nation,_ his (slightly questionable) mind replies.

 _Thanks, consciousness,_ he thinks bitterly. _Really helpful._

(The hyperactive rat that he’s convinced lives in his brain and is in charge of firing off breakneck, often unconnected thoughts, doesn't respond.)

He’s panting by the time he reaches a path at the top of the incline. It must be suspiciously steep beneath the unassuming grass, because Sokka has _great_ stamina, in more ways than one (wink wink, nudge nudge). So yeah: top of the hill. Weird stone walkway. Very suspicious.

There’s a girl pacing further down the path in dark green armor. He sees the faintest glint of a gold headband tucked into a bob of reddish-brown hair, full cheeks decorated in white paint and amber eyes rimmed in elegant kohl.

He feels something achingly, beautifully familiar flood his veins. He knows her, he knows he does!

“Suki!”

He isn’t quite sure which dark recess of his brain he retrieved the name from, but the way the girl smiles and practically tackles him in a hug tells him loud and clear that it’s the right one.

“Sokka!” she gasps. “Oh, thank Kyoshi, I thought—“

She pauses, her eyes widening; then, ever-so-slowly she brings her hand to rest just above the center of Sokka’s neck. He shivers as the pad of her thumb ghosts across the skin of his throat, his nerve endings far more sensitive than they have any right to be.

The ripples of pressure ache almost as badly as the raw concern in her eyes.

“What happened?

Sokka’s mind is slowly coming back online, thoughts returning to their usual scatterbrained quality, but...

“I don’t know.” He winces as the fierce pounding at the back of his skull ricochets with his words. “I think I got hit in the head.”

Suki nods and gently takes his hand. “Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

He allows Suki to pull him through the palace halls, a strange maze of marble columns and crimson drapes. The burgundy tapestries lining the walls depict dragons wreathed in shimmering flames, intricate swirls of golden thread gleaming from their cross-stitched eyes.

Gold on red, amber on ruby. A piercing, sunlit gaze shrouded in dark scar tissue.

Sokka freezes. The change in momentum jerks Suki backwards to a halt, but his brain is too frazzled to care. He only has one thought, one thing that he’s let so selfishly fall to the wayside:

“Where’s Zuko?”

Suki winces, glancing over her shoulder at the trio of staff chatting by the corner.

“Not here,” she whispers. “Come on.”

She tugs him towards what he recognizes as an entrance to the network of hidden passages snaking through the palace—passages which, thanks to some good ol’ fashioned homophobia, Sokka happens to have committed to muscle memory.

“This way,” he says, taking the lead.

Suki raises her brow at the change in direction but doesn’t question it; god bless her and her lack of patience for bickering.

He feels like some sort of special operative as he leads her up winding staircases and around an absurd amount of bends. (It would be cool, if not for the fact that such caution being necessary in the first place means the situation in the palace is...sticky.)

Sokka doesn’t recognize the two guards posted outside Zuko’s chambers when he emerges back into the hall (because there’s no way he’s going to the infirmary when the Fire Lord is _literally missing)._ They eye him warily, which—yeah, it’s valid. Still, they step aside at a nod from Suki, and Sokka will keel over before he denies himself the sweet, sweet benefits of nepotism.

All thoughts of fame by proximity immediately vanish when Sokka takes in the state of the room around him.

“Well, shit,” Suki says elegantly.

_You tell ‘em, girl._

Zuko’s room is...well, it’s a mess. Sokka and his chronic disorganization really has no room to talk, but _damn,_ this a whole other level. The Zuko he knows nearly has a conniption each time Sokka leaves so much as a sock on the floor. (He smirks at the many, _many_ fond memories he has of Zuko muttering to himself while collecting every shred of fabric that, hypocrite he is, he practically tore off of Sokka barely an hour prior.)

The only logical explanation for the utter disarray before him, he decides, is a body-snatcher sort of situation, because the place is a capital-d Disaster.

Rumpled clothes litter the floor and hang out of half-open drawers. The scent of stale peppermint wafts from the dried-out scar cream resting haphazardly on the bedside dresser, mixing with the aftertaste of rust and smoke lingering on wrinkled blankets.

Sokka feels sick.

“So,” he starts cautiously. “You never answered my question from before.”

He sees Suki wince out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t know where he is,” she says, beginning to wring her wrists. “He asked me and the other Kyoshi Warriors to leave you guys alone earlier, so we just thought you were, uh, you know…”

Sokka’s insides may feel like tenderized mush, but even now he has enough sense to blush at her implications.

“But then you both just disappeared for hours, and- and I should’ve known it was a bad idea.” Suki sighs, hanging her head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You were just trying to be a good wingman.”

“Wing _woman,”_ Suki corrects. “And I don’t think letting the Fire Lord get kidnapped really helps my case.”

Sokka swallows. _Kidnapped._ He knows, logically, that that’s what happened; that Zuko didn’t just vanish off the face of the planet without any explanation. Yet the word holds a sort of finality that he is far from being able to acknowledge, because he can barely even wrestle himself into recognizing the even the bigger truth:

“It’s my fault.”

“What?”

“We were arguing when it happened,” Sokka forces out; the pounding in his head is receding, now, swept away by the massive wave of guilt dragging him under. “And he kept saying he heard something, and- and I was just an asshole about it!”

“Sokka,” Suki says gently, “There’s no way you could’ve known—“

“But I should have!” he interjects.

Then, softer, he adds, “I should have believed him.”

Suki’s lips twist.

“What?” Sokka asks, suddenly suspicious.

“I’m sure you noticed Zuko hasn’t exactly been...trustworthy, recently,” she replies carefully.

“Yeah,” Sokka sighs. “I got that much.”

“It’s just—“ Suki stops and takes a deep breath. “There’s something else you should know.”

Sokka looks up, trepidation coiling in his chest.

“Zuko’s been visiting his father.”

“He’s been _what?”_

“I only found out a few weeks ago,” she admits. “I knew something was up, but I never thought…”

She trails off, eyes focused on some nondescript point in the distance. The feeling is very much mutual.

“This is bad,” Sokka mumbles eventually, dragging his hands down his face. “This is so, so bad.”

Seriously, the level of badness is beyond the modest confines of Sokka’s vocabulary. He’s never had the misfortune of meeting the bastard himself, but he’s more than familiar with the effects of Ozai’s cruelty on his family (and, you know, on the entire world he tried to burn down).

(Besides, if he _were_ to visit the asshole in his lowly cell, the only things that would be getting acquainted are Sokka’s fist and Ozai’s face.)

He’d thought Zuko had been getting better at disentangling himself from the manipulation. From the lies his subconscious continues to spin out of the dregs of his father’s control.

How much had Sokka missed? What else had Zuko deemed him unable— _unworthy—_ of knowing?

(He asks himself this as though he, too, didn’t turn a blind eye to the deterioration happening right in front of him. As though he hadn’t seen Zuko falling apart over long days and even longer nights and done nothing to intervene.)

“Does anyone else know?” he manages to ask.

“I told Mai and Ty Lee,” Suki replies. “Shit, I should probably tell them I found you.”

The _“and not Zuko”_ doesn’t need to be said.

“What about Ozai?” His voice cracks on the name. “Did they smack some sense into Zuko?”

Ruefully, Suki shakes her head. “None of us could get through to him.”

So this really was on Sokka, then. He knew he shouldn’t have left, he knew it! Tui and La, could this mess get any worse?

“Azula was supposed to talk to him about it, but…”

Well, would you look at that: it got worse.

_“What?”_

Suki hisses at him to be quiet, which would be all jolly and good if she hadn’t just oh-so-casually mentioned that Zuko has been chumming it up with not one, but _two_ emotionally abusive psychopaths.

“What the—why _her?”_

“It was Mai’s idea.”

Sokka is already seven stages into planning that backstabbing bitch’s murder by the time Suki speaks again.

“It was her idea, but _I_ was the one who told Azula.” She sighs at the look of disbelief clearly painted all over Sokka’s features. “Look, Zuko’s been visiting her every week. They trust each other.”

Sokka groans. “Has everyone forgotten that Azula is _literally evil?”_

“She’s not evil, Sokka,” Suki replies with a frown. “And I’m guessing the reason he didn’t see her these past few weeks is because she _did_ talk to him about seeing Ozai.”

Sokka’s brain can’t help but fixate on that very crucial information: _Zuko blew her off._

“I’m going to find her.”

“Sokka, you can’t—“

“You _know_ Azula never fights fair,” he interrupts. “She stole your identity! She cheated in the Agni Kai!”

He sees Suki’s bizarre protectiveness beginning to wane and goes in for the kill.

“Think about it,” he urges. “She’s played the long game before.”

(She’s harmed Zuko with words far worse than lightning.)

“I can’t—I _won’t_ let her hurt him again.”

He blinks back the tears beginning to blur his vision.

“Okay,” Suki relents. “But I’m coming with you.”

Sokka shakes his head. “You have to make sure nobody finds out about this whole ‘power vacuum’ situation. I don’t think we can handle a civil war right now.”

It isn’t a lie, but it’s a far cry from the truth; because political turmoil is a far second to the fact that, if he’s right about Azula, he refuses to let anyone hold him back from the vengeance he deserves. (Is the bloodlust on his behalf or Zuko’s? In the end, he decides the answer is the least of his concerns.)

“I hate it when you’re right,” Suki grumbles. “Just be careful out there, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Sokka replies, gaze wandering over Zuko’s walls before finally landing on the steely glint of two crossed blades, polished and deadly. “I will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow im sure sokka being alive surprised absolutely no one but thank you for bearing with me regardless lol


	28. escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She recognizes the mask as that of the Blue Spirit, AKA Zuzu’s pitifully disguised alter ego. Except…
> 
> “You’re not my brother.”
> 
> or: azula receives an unexpected late-night visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys i am,, so excited for this chapter. i hope yall enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it!
> 
> cw for references to abuse & one brief depiction of it (in the italics section)

There’s someone in Azula’s room.

More specifically, there’s someone in Azula’s room attempting to hide from her and doing a pathetic job of it.

She knows it isn’t a healer, as they don’t even make an attempt at subtly when they sweep her room for contraband. She debates ignoring the intruder until they show themselves, giving off an aura of unawareness to catch whomever is invading her remaining shred of privacy off guard.

But Agni, she’s so sick and tired of the monotony, and the slight chance of this encounter providing a break in the routine is too good to pass up.

“I know you’re there.”

The person breathing obnoxiously loudly in her closet doesn’t respond. Azula simply sighs as she closes the door to her room behind her.

“You know,” she says casually, “when you’re trying to sneak in somewhere, it’s typically a good idea to close the window behind you.”

She hears a muffled curse from inside her wardrobe. Still, no one emerges.

“Are you really going to make me come get you?”

Her thinly veiled threat finally evokes a response, and she crosses her arms as the closet door creaks open to reveal someone clad in all black. _Typical._ The only splash of color in the intruder’s ensemble is the theater mask on their face. She recognizes it as that of the Blue Spirit, AKA the protagonist of the ridiculous play Mother used to drag her to; AKA Zuzu’s pitifully disguised alter ego. Except…

“You’re not my brother.”

The man, if his physique is anything to go by, shakes his head and unsheathes a pair of swords from a scabbard slung across his back.

“No,” he says bitterly, “I’m not.”

His annoyingly whiny voice is familiar, though she can’t quite place it.

“Care to tell me what you were doing in my closet?”

“Only if you tell me where Zuko is.”

Huh. She’d expected some explanation of stalking, or even pervy creeping. But her brother?

“Back in his cushy palace, I suspect.” She can’t stop the bitterness from leaking into her tone, though she finds she doesn’t much care.

“Bullshit. I know you have him.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “I hate to break it to you, but this room isn’t exactly rife with hiding places.”

The man steps closer, crossing his dao at her neck. She matches him stride for stride until her back hits the wall. Her expression doesn’t waver.

“Are you really going to threaten me?” she challenges. “I doubt it will end well for you.”

She resolutely does not flinch as the cool edges of the blades make contact with her neck.

“I don’t think you're in any position to talk,” he growls.

“Would it make you feel better to check under my bed? I promise there aren’t any monsters down there.”

She can’t help but smirk as the man twitches, apparently seriously considering her offer. She meets his eyes through the mask, illuminated by the soft glow of the lamp at her bedside.

His pure, cerulean blue eyes.

“You’re the Water Tribe boy.”

His body tenses; it’s a clear tell.

“Tell me: does the theatricality come from dating my brother, or is it just your own brand of drama?”

“How do you—“

“I do talk to Zuzu, you know. His rambling about you is quite incessant.”

The swords retract a fraction of a centimeter. Azula grins.

“I presume the two of you have had some sort of lover’s quarrel?”

The peasant huffs. “What’s it to you?”

“Need I remind you that you broke into my room? In my opinion, that warrants an explanation.”

There’s a terse moment of silence before her unwanted visitor grits out, “Zuko’s missing.”

Azula twitches. “What?”

“He’s missing,” he repeats. “And I think you know where he is.”

There’s a discomforting fear beginning to build in Azula’s chest. She tamps it down with a practiced annoyance that’s much more preferable.

“Didn’t your little friends tell you? Zuzu has decided I’m no longer worth his precious time.”

_(He’s decided I’m no longer worth his promise not to leave me again.)_

“Believe me, I’ve heard,” the peasant spits.

“So what, then?” she asks, coolly examining her nails in the low torchlight. “You think I kidnapped my brother because he ignored me? I hardly think that effort would be worth my time.”

The Water Tribe boy honest-to-Agni _growls_ at her. It’s wholly unbecoming, even for such a lowlife, and one of the many reasons she refuses to waste any brain power recalling his stupid name.

“Why the hell should I trust you?”

Azula would shrug if not for the blades it would push closer to her skin. (She knows red is her color, but she isn’t _that_ desperate.)

“I did what that Kyoshi girl asked, didn’t I?”

The peasant stares at her. She stares right back. She is, as always, the last to cave.

“If Zuko isn’t here,” the boy says slowly, “then where is he?”

Azula raises her brow. “What am I, my brother’s keeper?”

The swords tighten momentarily at her throat before disappearing back into their sheath. Azula exhales and takes the opportunity to massage the tense muscles of her neck.

“Fine,” the Water Tribe boy mutters as he takes a few steps back. “Fucking _fine._ ”

He begins to pace near her still-open window. It’s infuriating.

“You know you'll pop a blood vessel if you keep going on like that,” Azula says sharply.

She can easily imagine the disbelieving stare aimed at her from behind the equally annoying mask. (At least the remark is enough to force him to stop his incessant, thudding footsteps.)

“I don’t have time for this.”

“And I do?” Azula scoffs. _“You’re_ the one in _my_ room.”

The peasant groans and scrubs at his forehead, knocking the mask askew in the process. The fraction of his face exposed is pinched tight, so tense and anxious that even Azula can feel it.

“Why are you even looking for Zuzu in the first place?” she asks carefully. “He’s probably just off brooding somewhere.”

“I told you: he’s missing. Someone attacked us. They knocked me out, and when I woke up, he was...”

His words send a shiver down Azula’s spine that, were it not for the clear gravity of the situation, she’d find wholly embarrassing.

(She ignores the fact that it probably has something to do with the way that she, too, is familiar with rising and finding her brother is gone.)

“Let me help you find him.” The words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop to analyze the foolishness of them.

“Excuse me?”

“I was great at tracking him and your little crew, wasn’t I?” Hmm, probably not her best selling point. “And besides, I know my way around Caldera.”

The Water Tribe boy crosses his arms. “Thanks, but no thanks. I can find him without a psychopath breathing down my back.”

Azula bristles at the comment, but forces herself to remain calm.

“And how do you plan to do that? I’m willing to bet you don’t even have a way back to the capital.”

The peasant—she really should try to learn his name if she plans to join him on his crusade—acts as though she insulted his entire existence with a mere logistical question.

“I hitched a ride here, and I’ll hitch one back,” he replies defensively.

“In the middle of the night?”

“I mean—“

“You need me,” she interrupts. “Admit it.”

She is disappointed but not surprised to find that Zuko’s boyfriend is just as stubborn as he is.

Luckily for her, she’s spent years honing the craft of outwitting her brother, and she doubts the ash banana falls far from the lovey-dovey tree.

“If you won’t take me with you, I’ll go after him myself. Wouldn’t it make more sense to combine our efforts?”

She receives no response.

“Besides,” she adds when it’s clear her offer is still up for deliberation. “If we work together, you get to keep an eye on me.”

For a moment of tense silence, Azula is prepared to accept her fate as the captain of a crew of one. Then:

“You can come. But I still don’t trust you!”

“Fine with me,” she replies with a shrug. “Now find a way to remove these hideous things so we can go.”

She holds her wrists out with a pointed stare, tapping her foot impatiently.

“I recognize those,” the peasant says curiously. “They’re chi-blocking cuffs!”

“What do you want, a medal? Stop wasting time and get them off of me. I know you have a key there somewhere.”

“No way! And no I don’t!”

Azula sighs. “You know, your lies would be much more convincing if your voice didn’t crack. You should work on that.”

“What do you—“

“ _And,”_ she adds before the embarrassing display of spluttering in front of her can deteriorate even further, “the windows lock from the outside, idiot.”

She gestures to the open, very much _not shattered_ window over her dresser.

“Even if I have the key,” the Water Tribe boy replies with a wholly unconvincing edge of secrecy, “there’s no way I’m letting you out of those.”

“You can’t be serious,” Azula scoffs. “How are we supposed to stage any sort of rescue if I can’t bend?”

“Yeah, no. I’m really not looking to get electrocuted in my sleep.”

Azula rolls her eyes. “As if.”

(She doesn’t mention the shameful knowledge deep in her gut that she doubts she can even summon more than a small flame, let alone lightning.)

“Can’t you just use, you know, a non-flamey weapon if you need?”

“Swords were Zuzu’s hobby, not mine,” she says dismissively. “Father always said…”

_“...these are yet another sign of your weakness, Prince Zuko. Your sister has already outperformed you in her bending despite your age, and you’re out playing with steel like a commoner?”_

_Azula, crouched behind a pillar in the training yard, remained silent. Though the blades Zuko had been playing with had clattered to the ground at Father’s entrance, her brother’s hands continued to clench in and out of fists at his sides._

_“But Cousin Lu Ten—“_

_Even at age eight, Azula knew to expect the resounding crack of a backhand against her brother’s cheek before Father even moved._

_“Do_ not _bring Prince Lu Ten into this,” Father hissed. “You are_ my _son, and you will act as such.”_

_She watched Zuko bow his head._

_“I’m sorry, Father. I’ll do better.”_

_Once Azula was sure they were once again alone, she skipped out of her hiding spot._

_“Zuzu,” she taunted. “Did you hear that? Dad thinks you’re a failure! He said...“_

Azula clenches her jaw. She can feel the peasant’s eyes raking over her, cutting her up and dissecting the twitches and tells she spent so long unlearning.

“Nevermind,” she grits out. “It doesn’t matter.”

“...Right.”

Azula sighs. “Can we just get out of here? I’m not _entirely_ useless without my bending, you know.”

She realizes belatedly that her new partner in crime most definitely does know, considering they’d fought each other on more than one occasion. (Is Zuko’s foot-in-mouth disease contagious? She surely hopes not.) Yet considering how she’s yet to be reprimanded, it seems that perhaps she’s managed to avoid this latest misstep.

“Fine. After you.” The Water Tribe boy gestures to the window, which Azula nimbly maneuvers herself out of with a wry chuckle. (Really, does he think she’s less of a threat with her back towards him? As if.)

She lands on the dirt outside with a dull _thud,_ finding herself in the narrow gap between the dormitory and the peripheral wall. She considers booking it for a moment before deciding against it. She’s always had a mind for strategy, and the same brain that won her the Dai Li’s loyalty (and reprieve from Father’s disapproval) knows with a cold certainty that this ridiculous team effort is still her best chance at finding Zuko.

She nearly reevaluates that assessment when the peasant careens out of the window and lands on top of her.

“Ugh,” she groans as she shunts him off. “Did you have to do that?”

All she gets is half of an unamused stare. God, she wants to light something on fire.

“Are you coming or what?” she snaps. “And fix your mask, you look ridiculous.”

She dutifully ignores the displeased grumbling behind her as she takes off in the direction of the stables. She can only assume her uncoordinated companion is following her, and if he isn’t—well, that’s no one’s fault but his own.

She reaches the stables without detection, a miraculous feat considering the peasant has the thundering grace of a komodo-rhino.

“Stay here and keep watch,” she orders quietly.

She leaves before he can inevitably protest and drag out this ordeal even longer than he’s already made it. (She doesn’t think about the way she inherently trusts him to do as she asks, because that’s a new level of vulnerability that, for the sake of her pride, she simply cannot admit.)

The stables are silent when she creeps inside. Some of the animals stir at the soft creaking of the door, but most remain asleep where they lay nestled amongst the hay. She does her best to step lightly as she makes her way to the supply racks in the corner, ears tuned in sharply for any hint of discovery.

Her hasty clothing change into more suitable travel clothes thankfully goes uninterrupted, and she makes fast work of lacing up her usual riding boots before shrugging a hooded cloak over her head. It’s not exactly an ideal disguise, but for now it will have to do.

It’s still better than that obnoxious theater mask.

She scours the shelf in front of her for a bag, which she quickly fills with an assortment of feed and pre-filled water skins. There are even a few snacks already tucked into the satchel’s side pocket, and she takes it as a sign of good fortune.

Father must have been right when he said she was born lucky, whereas Zuko was lucky to be born.

(The sudden intrusive thought makes her want to tear her hair out.)

She shoves away the unwanted mental echo of her father’s slimy voice as she ties the bag closed and hoists it up on her shoulder. Its contents jangle around despite her best efforts at stealth, and the ostrich-horses are all awake by the time she reaches their pen. Frankly, she wouldn't be surprised if she’d managed to wake the entirety of the ranch’s population with all the incessant clamoring she’s had the misfortune of causing.

It’s fine, though; she hadn’t been lying earlier when she said she could hold her own in hand-to-hand.

She clicks her tongue to call two of the creatures towards her, and holds her palms out for them to sniff. The breath blowing steadily across her skin is familiar and warm, as is the light pressure of beaks pressing into her hands. She drags her fingers up to pet at the crown of their heads with a small smile, taking comfort in the satisfied trill the animals let out. There’s a reason why Pabu and Naga are her favorites, after all.

“We’re going on a trip,” she whispers as she finally stops stroking their manes to fit each of them with a saddle. (She still has standards, after all, and sharing prolonged bodily contact with her brother’s boyfriend _really_ doesn’t meet them.)

The animals follow without complaint as she leads them out of their pen with a loose grip on their reins, evidently as eager as Azula to return to the open air. The peasant, much to what Azula refuses to call relief, is standing where she left him. (If he looks a bit more miffed now, that’s none of her concern.)

She wordlessly hands Naga’s reins over to the Water Tribe boy, who takes them with a limp, two-fingered grip.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never ridden an ostrich-horse,” she says flatly.

“Uh…”

_Agni help her._

“This is Naga,” she explains, gesturing to the now-confused animal between them. “Naga, this is…”

The fact that she doesn’t know the peasant’s name hits her with a sudden slap of embarrassment.

“...Zuzu’s boyfriend.”

The boy’s gaze tilts up to meet hers, breaking away from the suspicion he’d been radiating at Naga’s small, beady eyes.

“Oh my god,” he says. “You don’t know my name.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Azula retorts with what she hopes is a convincing scoff.

Apparently, failing to prove this knowledge (which she swears that, if it wasn’t for the constant therapy and medication she endures, she’d be able to recall) is enough to warrant a laughing fit.

“Sokka,” he says between wholly uncalled for bouts of giggles. “I’m Sokka.”

Sokka. Right. She knew that.

“I know,” she replies stiffly. “Now come on, we’re wasting time. We need to leave.”

Sokka swings his leg over Naga’s back with a grunt, adjusting himself on the saddle. Azula does the same, though far more gracefully.

“Ready?” he asks.

“As I’ll ever be,” Azula mutters far more honestly than she intended to. “Let’s go find my stupid brother.”

She gently digs her heels in Pabu’s sides, coaxing him into a modest jog as they near the official edge of the ranch’s property. Sokka—once he finally manages to catch up—stumbles his way off of Naga and towards the gate that once felt so far away. She watches with disdain as he tests each and every key on the ring she _knew_ he possessed before finding the correct one.

She’s past the exit the second the lock clicks open.

Strangely, crossing the outer wall doesn’t fill her with any sort of relief. She’s dreamt about escaping countless times, and never once had she imagined it to be so lackluster. It probably doesn’t help that she’s forced to stop intermittently because Sokka lacks any sort of equilibrium. That’s not to say watching him lose his balance isn’t amusing, though.

(It’s also a bit embarrassing, because this idiot and his entourage of overpowered children managed to best her time and time again on their little quest for world peace.)

(At least she was still better at chasing them than Zuko.)

She swallows as she waits for Sokka to climb back onto his saddle. _Zuko._ She spent three long years convincing herself not to care about her brother’s whereabouts, doing everything in her purview to forget his face, his laughter. (His screams.) Yet the shameful truth is that a day never passed without her noticing his absence in her life. Her mind would inevitably wander back to him at the most inopportune of times, and she spent many long nights wondering if he was even still alive. 

She’d go sit at the turtle-duck pond sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep. She doesn’t quite remember why she stopped visiting, so she can only assume it had something to do with her father.

She _does_ remember the first time she saw his face, burnt and red and twisted, that fateful day in the desert. It was not the first of Father’s marks on his body, but it was one which she, for once, could not explain away.

(After all, if it was craftily hidden beneath swaths of cloth, was it really there to begin with?)

The unfortunate, damning fact of the matter is that now, years later, she is once again in the dark, blindly looking for her brother in the shadows.

But this time, it’s of her own volition. This time, Father hasn’t forced her hand.

 _This time,_ she vows, _Zuko’s homecoming won’t end in flames._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pabu and naga (plus my main himbo bolin) carried the entirety of the nightmare that was lok s2 and that’s a hill i’m willing to die on


	29. trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So. Him and Azula working together. Riding side-by-side through the countryside on stolen ostrich horses. Her not actively trying to set him on fire. 
> 
> These are apparently all things that are happening now.
> 
> or: sokka and azula hit the road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing a super-long chapter while watching the u.s. descend into chaos...
> 
> cw for mild violence, brief mention of blood, & allusions to injuries and abuse

Kei Lo dreams in shades of red.

It’s the chipped paint on the ever-grinning Dragon Emperor mask still a few inches too big for his head, the plumage of the messenger hawk bearing the report of his father’s death. His brother’s. It’s the Fire Nation flag shrouding their funeral pyres, and the ribbon tying the decree announcing it was all for naught, because the war was over and Ozai was deposed and his family had burned without retribution.

(It’s the fire flower tea his mother would brew for him back in Hira’a, and the ambassador’s blood still rusting on the knife his brother gave him before he left for battle, and the raw skin of his hands, washed over and over again yet still never clean.)

He sees it on the Fire Lord’s face, dribbling from his split lip and broken nose. He sees it on the rough skin of his scar, pressed against the dirt coating the bottom of his cell.

The imposter is whimpering where he lays, semi-conscious and drugged up to his eyeballs. He mumbles Sokka’s name every so often, mutters a litany of nearly unintelligible apologies.

Kei Lo shouldn’t care. In fact, he should probably find the whole thing pathetic. (He tells himself he does, because he’s been gone from home too long to afford not to.)

It doesn’t matter, though—because just like Master Ukano said, it will all be over soon.

* * *

So. Him and Azula working together. Riding side-by-side through the countryside on stolen ostrich horses. Her not actively trying to set him on fire. 

These are apparently all things that are happening now.

Sokka doesn’t know what to make of it. On the one hand, he’s pretty sure he’s made one of the dumbest decisions of his young life; like, accidentally-getting-zooted-on-cactus-juice-in-the-middle-of-the-desert, thinking-Toph-wouldn’t-share-all-the-embarrassing-things-she’d-overheard-while-invading-his-privacy-with-her-gross-feet levels of idiocy. But on the other, this _is_ the kind of situation where he shoukd take all the help he can get.

(He’s still on high alert, though. Because Azula being some sort of non-murderous animal-whisperer? Very suspicious.)

They’ve been operating in silence for the past few hours, and Sokka is so. Fucking. _Bored._ It’s worse than the endless trips on Appa, because at least The Gaang (yeah, he likes that name, he’s sticking with it) always had weird stories to share. Like Toph’s reenactments of her Earth Rumble fights—god, Sokka loved hearing about those. What oh-so-fascinating tales could _Azula_ recount? All the times she pushed her brother out of trees and off of buildings? No thanks.

Also, Appa didn’t give him serious groin pain and constantly judge him with weird, squinty eyes whenever he falls—no, is _kicked—_ off.

Naga must have some sort of psychic sense, because she then proceeds to buck him from her back for the fiftieth time. (And wow _,_ don’t even get him _started_ on how much he hates psychics. That’s right, he’s talking about you, Aunt Wu. _“Your future is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it, self-inflicted.”_ Pssh, as if.)

(On second thought… Nope, nevermind. The stupid fortuneteller and her stupid volcano he never recieved any well-deserved hero worship for saving her from can shove it.)

“Could you cut that out? You’re slowing us down.”

He can’t decide if Azula’s snide comments are better or worse than when she was laughing at him earlier. Wait, did she tell the Naga to be mean to him? Is this all some plan of prolonged torture?

“Sorry I didn’t brainwash my ostrich-horse,” he replies sarcastically.

Azula guides her mount around by the reins to face him. “It’s called having balance. You should try it sometime.”

Sokka glowers as he climbs back onto Naga, readjusting the scabbard on his back. It feels weird, carrying Zuko’s swords, but also strangely right. He’s trained with them before, felt a pair of warm hands gently readjust his grip (and a mouth against his when he finally managed to win a sparring match). The blades are lighter than Space Sword (damn, pour one out for that beauty), and considerably harder to wield. He was still working on the “two halves of a whole” thing when he left for the South Pole, and he could definitely use some more practice.

(He’ll make Zuko teach him more once they’re back in the palace. Once they’re safe.)

(Once he finally has the chance to tell Zuko he loves him.)

For now, the blades are the only tangible piece of his boyfriend that he has to hold on to, so he clings as hard as he can and prays it’s enough to keep him from floating off into the ether.

Sokka sighs and spurs his ostrich-horse back into a trot; he hears Azula do the same, though far more dramatically. (Are the theatrics a genetic thing? Considering Ozai’s over-the-top Phoenix King schtick, it probably is.)

He must zone out at some point—it’s not _his_ fault they’ve been riding in uncomfortable silence for La-knows how long—because he is suddenly very close to a glaring, stationary Azula.

“We should stop for the night,” she says.

“Are you kidding? We don’t have time for beauty sleep!”

It’s hard to see in the darkness, but he’s pretty sure Azula rolls her eyes. (Even if she doesn’t, she’s still radiating major eye-rolling vibes.)

“Pabu and Naga need to rest,” she replies, “and we need to lay low. They probably sent a search party for me. We can make it to Caldera in the morning.”

Sokka scowls. The part of him that’s scared shitless for Zuko’s safety _(where is he, who took him, what are they doing to him)_ wants to protest, but Naga _has_ been slowing down, and bounty hunters really would throw a major wrench in their plans, so...

“Fine,” he aquieces. “But only for a few hours.”

Okay, Azula _definitely_ rolls her eyes this time.

“There’s a creek over there we can drink from,” she says, pointing to an outcropping of trees a short ways away. “The trees will give us cover, and the moss should be soft enough to sleep on.”

Sokka shudders, because that sounds like it’ll be wet and gross, which are two things he really doesn’t want to be.

Azula must sense the reaction, as she fixes him with a withering glare. “Unless you brought bedrolls in that little purse of yours?”

His silence is answer enough. (It’s not his fault, though. How was he supposed to know he’d be going camping? Also, it’s a very manly satchel!)

He chooses to be the bigger person and not protest as he follows Azula towards the water. He’d finished off the small waterskin he’d brought early on in their ride, and he doesn’t realize how dry his throat is until he hears the rushing of the stream. The miserable state of dehydration is apparently the only thing he and Naga see eye-to-eye on, because she closes the remaining distance with an impressive burst of speed. Sokka manages to cling to the saddle until they reach the pebbly shore, and then meaneuvers himself off of it just as gracefully as Azula does a few feet away. (You heard him: just. As. Gracefully.)

The ostrich-horses immediately dunk their heads in the water, and Sokka learns that the creatures can apparently hold their breath for a freakishly long time. (That or they’re trying to drown themselves, which is valid but would also be a major pain in the ass.)

Azula doesn’t appear concerned, so he lets it slide; he’s fairly confident by now that while she may be plotting against him, she harbors no ill intent towards the animals.

He watches her from the corner of his eye as he fills his bottle. The water itself, illuminated by the glow of the moon, appears clear, and the current is fast enough that Sokka and his expert instincts deem it safe enough to drink. Azula must agree, because she brings the water to her lips without batting an eye. He waits a few moments to see if she gets sick before pushing aside his mask and doing the same, though he makes significantly more embarrassing gulping noises because fuck is he thirsty.

When his throat finally stops feeling like the Si Wong desert, he sets the mask on a nearby rock and splashes some water on his face. His cheeks are covered in a gross combination of dirt, sweat and (incredibly masculine) dried tears. It’s been a rough day, okay?

He checks again to make sure Azula isn’t doing anything suspicious—she’s just feeding the ostrich-horses, which seems innocent enough—before sneaking off for a bathroom trip, bringing his bag and scabbard along with him. (No way in hell is he letting them out of his sight, _especially_ the keys.) He takes the moment of solitude to recenter himself and pay attention to his breaths the way Zuko showed him during his few miserable attempts at meditation. (He vehemently denies that this is a weird time to do this kind of activity, because after this window of privacy it’s back to spending every ounce of focus on watching Azula.)

The animals have their weird, talon-y feet folded underneath them when Sokka returns to their makeshift campsite. Azula leans against Pabu’s back with her legs crossed, absentmindedly stroking at the fur behind her.

“Did you get lost?” she asks with a smirk.

Sokka huffs and takes a seat across from her. Naga is less than thrilled by this development, and proceeds to poke at his shoulder with her beak.

“Naga,” Azula chides. “Be nice.”

She turns to rifle through her bag, reemerging with some sort of white blob.

“Here,” she says, tossing it to Sokka. “Give her this sugar cube. It’s her favorite.”

Sokka’s not entirely convinced this isn’t a ploy to get Naga to bite his hand off, but the ostrich-horse stops pecking at him long enough to swipe the cube out of his palm with a rough, purple tongue.

“Eugh,” Sokka groans, shuddering and wiping the gross spit coating his hand on his pants and, wonderful, now the fabric is all slobbery.

The sheer disgustingness—or maybe poisonous barbs on Naga’s tongue?—must be causing him to lose his mind, because he swears to Yue that Azula is...giggling?

It’s harsh, high-pitched and slightly grating, but not in the way he’s familiar with. It sounds different from her laughter when she blasted her uncle full of lightning. Or bombed the Western Air Temple on her airship. Or did a whole host of other horrible things to him and his friends that broadcasted loud and clear that forming this alliance was a serious mistake on his part.

Yet Sokka’s always-accurate instincts tell him it may actually be genuine, which, _what?_

“Oh, dear,” Azula says, wiping at her eyes as though dispelling invisible tears. “Zuzu was right, you _are_ a funny one.”

Then she does something even weirder: she _offers him food._

“It’s made for peasants, but it was already in the bag when I took it,” she says with a shrug. “And it’s better than ostrich-horse feed.”

Sokka’s growling stomach forces him to hold back his snide reply to the “peasant” comment, and he tentatively takes what looks like a stale piece of bread from Azula’s outstretched hand. It’s somehow both hard and mushy, and he’s sure the remaining ostrich-horse saliva on his palm isn’t doing it any favors. (Thanks again, Naga.)

Upon closer inspection, he sees strange flecks mixed into the brownish-yellow dough. Aha! He _knew_ Azula had a secret, murder-y plan!

“It’s not poisoned,” she says as though reading his mind. “See?”

She takes an exaggerated bite out of her own slice of bread, making a big show of swallowing it. “Just old,” she adds with a grimace.

“What do you call these, then?” Sokka asks. “Looks pretty poisonous to me.”

Azula glances to where Sokka is pointing to one of the suspicious specks and fixes him with a look of disappointment withering enough to rival Katara’s.

“It’s ash banana bread,” she explains. “The fruits have little hairs.”

Sokka frowns down at his bread.

“No need to sound so condescending,” he grumbles. “It’s not like I’m from here.”

“Clearly,” Azula mutters.

When it’s obvious that Sokka is too smart to fall for her poisonous trap, she offers to trade with him. “I’ve already eaten from this one, see? And Zuzu would kill me if I let his little boyfriend starve.”

Her tone is patronizing at best, and Sokka wants to shoot down her offer but dammit, he really _is_ hungry. Plus, Azula’s half-consumed slice is objectively smaller, so swapping really wouldn’t be fair.

“Here,” he says, breaking off a small piece of his and handing it to her. “Prove it’s not poisoned.”

Azula rolls her eyes but does as he asks. After a few minutes pass without her keeling over, Sokka finally allows himself to cave and take a bite. The flavor is...something. He can actively feel his mouth drying out as he chews, and there’s only the barest taste of fruit. He’s sure the bread would be great (or at least tolerable) if it hadn’t been sitting in a barn for 50 years, but alas. It’s still food, though, and that in and of itself meets his incredibly low standards.

Though it’s still kind of hard to make out without the light of a fire—an element which he will under no circumstances allow anywhere near Azula, chi-blocked or not—he thinks he catches the shadow of a yawn creeping across Azula’s features.

“You can sleep if you want,” he offers. “I’ll keep watch.”

He receives a wary glance in response. “Why?”

“You’re tired,” he says with a shrug.

“And you aren’t?”

“I’m fine.” _(I don’t think I could sleep if I tried.)_

Azula purses her lips. “You don’t trust me.”

“No shit,” Sokka snorts.

“I suppose I can’t blame you,” Azula replies after a moment. “Very well. Wake me if anything interesting happens.”

With that, she leans further back against Pabu’s side, shifting a few times before going still. Sokka isn’t wholly convinced she’s actually asleep, but at least the act gives him a sorely needed break from her snide remarks and sharp amber eyes. (They look so much like Zuko’s that it hurts.)

He finishes the stale bread in a silence interrupted only by the mechanical sound of his chewing. The mush is bland on his tongue, nothing more than texture as it slides down his throat. It’s probably better this way, because if he allows his body a moment to process it, he’s sure he’ll find the flavor to be much more ash than banana.

He swallows, stares up at the sky, and tastes nothing.

Yue is beautiful where she shines overhead, surrounded by stars and the endless universe. It’s not the same as the night sky at the poles, and he wonders if Yue knows this; if she, too, feels the cold detachment from her roots.

(Yet when Sokka really thinks about the homesickness inside him, it is not sown from snow and ice and sea. It is not the constellations making up the Fire Nation’s heavens, but rather the warm presence at his side explaining each and every shimmery myth with boyish wonder and golden fire in his eyes.)

The moon doesn’t answer. Sokka isn’t sure why he expects her to. Some sort of childish hope? Self-pitying escapism? A ridiculous, personally-jaded rebuke of the karma’s premeditated hatred for him?

The Spirits already stole Yue from him. He’ll be damned if they take Zuko, too.

* * *

His watch is uneventful until it isn’t.

There are hushed voices near the periphery of the makeshift campsite, twigs crunching underneath heavy boots. He quickly slips his scabbard and bag over his shoulder before crawling towards Azula.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Wake up.”

She doesn’t stir, her head pressed against Pabu’s flank. (She must have actually trusted him to let her sleep.)

“Wake up,” he repeats, shaking her shoulder for good measure.

Azula jerks upwards at this, and wrenches Sokka’s arm away none too gently in the process. She releases him moments later with a hitched breath, her eyes roaming frantically until they settle on Sokka.

(He pushes away the nauseating implications of the fact that he’s seen that same far-away look—that same desperate, confused, sleep-addled violence—from Zuko too many times to count.)

The muscles in his shoulders groan in protest as Sokka flexes it a few times, but he makes no mention of it to Azula. Deep down, he knows it’s not her fault.

“What’s going on?” Azula’s voice is soft, the hard edges of her voice and posture sanded away in the darkness.

The snap of a nearby branch leaves Sokka’s reply frozen in his throat; from the way Azula’s eyes narrow, he’s pretty sure she more than gets the message regardless.

“...sure about that?”

“‘Course I am.”

Two voices, two sets of feet.

“But we’ve been tracking these tracks for hours,” the first voice complains.

_Shit. They’d been followed?_

“The reward for the princess will be worth it,” the second argues.

Sokka’s determined gaze meets Azula’s. She rises to crouch on the balls of her feet, fists clenched. He unsheathes his— _Zuko’s—_ swords.

They strike.

Their pursuers don’t know what hit them.

Spoiler alert: it’s a world of hurt (and probably a concussion).

A stinging aftershock ripples through Sokka’s wrist as he slams the blunt end of his dao into one of the men’s skulls, sending him crumpling to the dirt. Azula’s target, incapacitated by a series of hard-hitting jabs to what Sokka is sure are some very sensitive pressure points, falls beside him, twitching.

“Well,” Sokka says. “That was easy.”

Azula nudges at a body with her toe. It remains limp as it’s jostled, but Sokka’s pretty sure he catches some movement in the guy’s chest. (Well, 50% sure. Is it bad that he doesn’t really care?)

“We should get moving,” Azula says.

Sokka nods, returning his blades to their scabbard. “I’ll go wake Naga.”

He’s made it all of two steps when he hears the unmistakable _twang_ of a bow being notched. There’s a millisecond of hesitation before Sokka’s adrenaline kicks in, launching his body forward and tackling Azula to the ground.

The arrow arcs through the space her head just occupied, instead burrowing harmlessly in the nearby brush. The sound sends the ostrich-horses scurrying, but Sokka doesn’t have time to worry about it.

“There’s more!” he hisses as he rolls off of Azula and into a crouch.

He redraws his weapons with shaky hands.

“There,” Azula says, extending a pale finger towards the treeline. “I see movement.”

“How many do you think there are?”

Azula shrugs. “Three?”

“Try seven, sweetheart.”

Sokka lurches to his feet on instinct at the deep voice _way_ too close behind him. He’s spins, swords crossed, to face what looks like an older, crustier cousin of that wheat-chewing weirdo Jet. (He can’t see the dude’s eyebrows in the dark, but Sokka has no doubt they’re infuriatingly ugly.)

The downstrokes of his swords are met with the sideswipe of a massive guandao. The force behind the counter-strike nearly throws Sokka’s balance, but he tightens his core and remains upright. He blocks the man’s next attack with a grunt, the red, beaded tassel adorning the hooked blade glinting dangerously to Sokka’s skin.

“Hey, I know that symbol!”

Azula scoffs somewhere off to his left, locked in her own match of impressively nimble fisticuffs. _Good to know she’s doing well enough to judge me,_ Sokka thinks wryly.

His sparring partner is similarly unamused, which is super rude, considering Sokka didn’t even sign up for this fight in the first place!

“You’re a Rough Rhino.”

The next blow has more strength behind it. Sokka grits his teeth.

“I _was,”_ the man sneers.

“Wow. What’s it like to be a terrorist?”

All he gets is a roar in response.

“Jeez. Touchy subject, huh?”

The guandao swings dangerously close to Sokka’s head. He twists out of the way, losing himself to the blood pounding through his veins and the practiced moves, lunges and swipes buried deep in his muscle memory. He channels the sharp critiques and suggestions from Master Piandao. He feels the ghost of Zuko’s body wrapped around him, guiding him through the motions.

He disarms his enemy and downs him with a sharp stomp to the shin. He thinks he hears bone break before he kicks the weapon out of reach, and the knowledge is both nauseating and oh so satisfactory.

If the gross Rough Rhinos guy now knocked out at his feet was telling the truth, there are still six attackers to deal with. _Correction,_ he mentally amends as Azula smoothly chokes out an archer that came from La-knows-where. _Five more._

He can do this. _They_ can do this.

Then the fire starts flying.

“Get down!” he shouts, flattening himself behind a nearby rock.

Azula hurries to take cover at his side, breathing heavily. “They’re benders,” she says between pants. “All of them.”

Translation: they’re fucked.

“Come out, Little Princess,” one of the firebenders taunts. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

Azula’s eyes are wide when she looks at him. 

“They’re benders,” she repeats.

The flames illuminate the desperation on her face. Pale skin and high, regal cheekbones, just like her brother’s.

“Please,” she says, holding her cuffed wrists out towards him.

She begs like she isn’t asking him to abandon logic altogether. To betray any sort of agreement or understanding built between them. He’s a strategist, and he’s run through the scenarios. He knows the math, the summations and equations boiling down to one thing so undeniably clear: Azula plus fire equals destruction.

(Didn’t he used to substitute Zuko’s name in with those variables?)

The blaze around them flares, heat washing over them in waves.

(Was this how Azula felt when she watched her brother burn all those years ago?)

She attacked Sokka and his friends. She cheated in the Agni Kai, and nearly cost Zuko his life in the process. How many wounds did his boyfriend owe to his own flesh and blood?

(How many did Azula?)

His mind wanders back to a half-forgotten conversation, to antiseptics and bloody knuckles and fingerprint-shaped bruises.

_(“She tried to kill you.”_

_“That’s nothing new.”_

_“In what world does that make it okay?”_

_“The one where she’s my fucking sister!”)_

He catches snippets of another memory; Zuko, head resting against his shoulder, staring into the flickering campfire outside Hira’a.

( _“_ _I think Azula and I were like you and Katara, once. Things were different, when we were kids.”)_

“Please, Sokka!”

_(“You need me. Admit it.”)_

The flames draw closer. They’re out of time.

Sokka’s fingers close around the steel ring in his bag. The metal is cold. The dread in his gut is colder.

He sends a prayer up to Yue and gives Azula the keys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this turned out exactly how i wanted it to, but hopefully yall enjoyed/didn’t find it too rushed!
> 
> (also kei lo’s backstory is from the end of may your flame burn eternal, if anyone was confused)


	30. wildfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has bending always been this exhilarating? This chaotic? There’s so much energy within her, roiling in her core and demanding release. It tastes like static, crackling through her veins and out through her upturned palms.
> 
> or: azula reunites with her fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild violence/injuries & discussion of abuse
> 
> sorry this took a little longer, i was busy being depressed and watching bridgerton lol

There’s fire beneath Azula’s skin.

It’s always been there, she supposes, to some degree; even while dampened, it was never truly gone. But it’s become increasingly clear that those were mere sparks trapped within her. Because this? This is an inferno.

The flames rise at her command, breaking the surface in a reunion both painful and relieving. It’s like she’s gasping for breath and inhaling more smoke than air. Like she’s kerosene spread over smoldering embers.

She’s off-kilter and trembling and oh so very _alive._

Has bending always been this exhilarating? This chaotic? There’s so much energy within her, roiling in her core and demanding release. It tastes like static, crackling through her veins and out through her upturned palms.

She stares, entranced, as her hands are engulfed in familiar haloes of burning blue. This fire, it’s hers _._ No, it’s more than that—it’s _her._ An extension of herself, expanding and devouring, reaching out in tendrils and snatching the oxygen right out of the atmosphere. Out of her lungs.

She feels the heat around her, senses rather than sees the flashes of flames rocketing in her direction. The rock she and Sokka are crouched behind shields them from the worst of the attack, but she knows that it soon won’t be enough. It’s a meager protection from the scalding pain awaiting them, a window between life and fiery death growing ever narrower.

Sokka must have also sensed this, the last shred of a poor excuse for safety slipping through their fingers.

(Her fingers, dancing with flames. His fingers, clutching the hilts of the broadswords so tightly it must hurt; clinging to one final remnant of her brother, ready to shield himself from one sibling’s cruelty with the weapon of the other.)

She doesn’t fault him for the lack of trust. She’s grateful for the vote of confidence, of course, but she holds no such delusion that it equates to some deeper sort of understanding. This is a transaction, an exchange; and Azula knows all too intimately the consequences of failing to emerge victorious.

It’s a skill, much like bending, in which she excelled while her brother floundered. She maneuvered effortlessly through the stipulations of Father’s approval as Zuko stumbled, rose unscathed as he tripped and fell in the ashes.

She refuses to think about the time the tables were turned; the time she hedged her bets to give him redemption only for him to throw it all back in her face. (She wears that failure like a scar, too, though she dares say she hides it much better than his.)

What will Sokka want, once this is over? She understands in the most basic of senses the contract they’ve unintentionally signed—she saves their lives in return for an inch of freedom. But after? Can she really subject herself to imprisonment yet again?

She decides to save the semantics for later, because really, what good will it do her to worry about an issue that will lose all relevance if she lets them go up in flames?

“Hey, idiots!” she calls, rising to her feet. “Looking for me?”

Her challenge draws a volley of attacks from the assailants, which she easily swipes aside. The motion awakens a recognition deep within her unused muscles, something simultaneously familiar and new. She hasn’t practiced, _really_ practiced, any katas in over a year; but just as bending came easily to her in childhood, the fire flows through her now without resistance.

She laughs as she launches herself into the fray, fingers ablaze. There’s a moment of hesitation from the attackers—surprise, no doubt, as to the sudden injection of blue into the fiery sea around them—before they surge forward again. From there, it’s a delicate, sorely outmatched dance, even more so than their hand-to-hand encounters from minutes ago. The repertoire of attacks is similarly uneven; frankly, Azula could probably outwit them at the ripe age of ten.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she taunts.

The bounty hunters, predictably, fall completely for her ploy to lure them away from Sokka. She should probably feel annoyed by the peasant’s nonbending status and general uselessness, but a part of her relishes the opportunity to decimate a score of enemies all on her own.

(Either way, she isn’t worried about him. She isn’t.)

“Fall back!” one of the men calls.

Azula swipes out another wave of flames with a huff. “Backing out of a fight? Really?”

The attackers—at least, those not piled in a smoldering heap at her feet—scramble out of the blast radius. They’re like disgusting little cavehoppers, all wriggly and consumed with a single-minded desperation for survival. She truly wants nothing more than to squash all three of them beneath the toes of her blood-splattered boots.

She manages to take down two with a variation of the fire daggers she’d witness her brother practicing in the palace courtyard after their return from Ba Sing Se. She could only assume Zuzu picked up this sort of fighting during his years at sea, as she herself had little experience with firebending in such close quarters. Yet in spite of the fact that she’d seldom fought with an express aim of incapacitation in the past, she manages to execute the move—with the addition of some much-needed improvements in form, of course—and take down two more of the assailants.

The last straggler dodges and weaves, an insect hell-bent on crawling away rather than an opponent. He skitters his way past her attacks, dispelling the flames powerful enough to reach him as he books it towards the tree-line.

“Look out!”

Azula ducks on instinct to avoid a strange disk suddenly hurtling past overhead. It curves in a wide arc through the night air, glinting in the light of the small flames still lingering in the underbrush. If the peasant hadn’t been the one to alert her, she’d be half convinced he actually meant to hit her. The only other possible explanation is that he had tried to nail the remaining attacker, except his aim was far too wide. She’s honestly a bit embarrassed on his behalf.

There’s the _ping_ of metal meeting bone, and the final body hits the ground. The weapon flies back into Sokka’s outstretched hand with unsettling precision.

“Fuck yeah, boomerang!”

Azula stares for a moment at the bizarre reunion happening a few feet away before she blinks herself out of her stupor and walks over. She shakes off the remaining sparks tingling on her fingers as she maneuvers around the minefield of bodies and exposed roots, and dampens the small, remaining patches of fire with a downward sweep of her hands.

Sokka is still mid-embrace with his strange weapon—a boomerang, she thinks he called it—when he notices her approach. He immediately shifts into a battle-ready stance, seemingly prepared to turn his scarily accurate aim on her if need be.

Azula slows to a stop and raises her arms in a gesture of peace.

“That was some impressive work back there,” she says carefully. “You’ve certainly improved since our time on that gondola at Boiling Rock.”

The compliment—if one could even call it that—tastes like rubber.

Sokka scoffs. “You mean when you were trying to boil us all to a crisp?”

“Not _all_ of you,” she retorts. “And I believe the correct response is ‘thank you’.”

She means it in regards to her offhand attempt at praise, but it’s clear that the peasant takes it to mean something else entirely.

“Thank you,” he says slowly, eyes narrowing, “for not letting us all burn alive.”

Azula nods stiffly. The words _“thank you for trusting me”_ sit heavily on her tongue.

Sokka doesn’t say anything for a moment, simply flicking his gaze up and down over her. Looking for any signs of evil firebending, perhaps; or maybe just determining if continuing to travel with her is worth the risk. (Logically, she knows she’s just slowing him down; but it seems that Azula and logic are falling more and more out of touch each day.)

“They scared off the ostrich-horses,” he says finally.

The intentional avoidance of the topic of Azula’s now-unblocked bending is not lost on her, and it takes a monumental effort on her part not to let the shock register on her face.

“They can’t have gone far,” she replies, doing her damnedest to maintain the careful truce between them. “We should be able to lure them back with food.”

Sokka nods, then bends down to grab the discarded bag of feed and sugar cubes at his feet. He stiffens suddenly, halfway down, and the moonlight illuminates the obvious grimace overtaking his features.

“Fuck,” he mutters throught gritted teeth.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

Azula huffs and crosses her arms. “It wasn’t a question, dumb-dumb.”

She takes a few more quiet steps towards him until she’s at his side, easily taking note of the way he’s clutching at his left thigh.

“Let me see,” she orders, calling a small flame to her hand.

Sokka flinches back, and Azula immediately extinguishes her fist.

“It’s fine,” Sokka says with what’s clearly a feigned nonchalance. “I broke this leg a few years ago taking down an entire airfleet like a badass. It just acts up sometimes.”

Azula purses her lips. In the few moments of illumination she’d been allowed, she’d seen the unmistakable blackness of scorch marks. “They burned you.”

“What?” Sokka asks, voice cracking almost comically. “No they didn’t!”

“I know what a burn looks like, idiot.”

“Well, what about you? Didn’t _you_ get hurt doing all the _whoosh, whoosh, pew, pew?”_

Azula blinks, unimpressed. “You mean firebending?”

Sokka nods vehemently.

“Don’t you know?” she chides. “Firebenders don’t burn easily.”

She doesn’t quite know what she hopes to imply by that, but from the way Sokka swallows and moves his hand away from the injury, it’s done whatever convincing damage it needed to.

The wound isn’t as bad as she expected, though she can’t be sure of the prognosis while inspecting it without a light source. For a moment, she wishes her fire wasn’t the icy blue that earned her so much praise and accolades in her youth. (Zuzu’s orange flames may not be as hot, but it may be a worthy trade-off if it meant disentangling herself from the cruelty of her past.)

“You need more light.” It isn’t a question, but rather a resigned acknowledgment of an uncomfortable fate.

Slowly, Azula nods. She doesn’t miss Sokka’s grimace.

“There should be some branches around here we can use, right?”

Azula raises her brow.

“You know,” Sokka adds. “To make a campfire.”

Ah. So it isn’t the bending—it’s the _bender._ She almost laughs at the logic. At the implication that the flames cease being inextricably hers after they leave her fingertips. Had Zuzu really never explained it to him? Or was he, too, hyperaware of his boyfriend’s obvious aversion to their element?

Agni, her brother’s self-repression truly knows no bounds.

Still, she complies with the peasant’s odd demand, because at the end of the day it is still a concession to Azula’s request. (Because it is still more trust than she ever thought she might deserve.)

Gathering the kindling is easy enough, and it catches immediately upon her purposefully small summing of sparks. Sokka still shudders at the sight of it, but he makes no move to retreat. It’s almost incomprehensible, this association of weak bending with safety. (Spirits know the opposite was beaten into her brother more times than she can count.) Yet this incompatible logical fallacy is one she can accept for the sake of what she now sees is a massive burn sprawling across Sokka’s thigh.

“How bad is it?” he asks with a wince.

Azula hums as she gently skims her fingers over the wound. “Second-degree at worst.”

“Will it, you know…?”

He sounds tentative, unsure in a way wholly at odds with what seems like a constant, infuriating self-assuredness.

“...scar?”

Something wilts inside Azula’s chest.

“I don’t know,” she replies honestly. “But it shouldn’t be too bad if we clean and bandage it now.”

“Right,” he says shakily, looking between Azula and his leg. “Okay.”

He allows her to guide him over to the edge of the creek, slowly sidestepping the spread of fallen bodies.

“Sit here,” she instructs. “Keep your leg straight.”

He does as she says, and she elects not to comment on his incessant grumbling, because she’s merciful like that. She then turns to survey the veritable array of unconscious (or dead, not that she really cares) bounty hunters. The one nearest to her—a hulking man who succumbed to her fists moments ago with laughable ease—has a now-dirtied cloak tangled around his torso. She removes it with a grunt, wrinkling her nose at the putrid smell of mud and drying blood.

It’s disgusting, but it’ll have to do. (Besides, she doubts the peasant has high standards when it comes to cloth finery.)

She tears the fabric into a few strips. In the flickering light of the fire, she can see it was once embroidered with a truly garish design of green and purple swirls. Really, whoever this unfortunate tailor was should be thanking her for putting the monstrosity out of its misery.

Sokka is still grumbling to himself when she returns to the creek. She ignores him in favor of dipping one of the cloth strips into the water and wringing it over his thigh.

“Fuck! Fucking _shit_ that hurts!”

Azula rolls her eyes, letting the curses wash over her as she methodically cleans the wound. It looks significantly better within seconds, and by the third time she’s wiped it down with a wet rag, she’s fairly confident that, if the burn does leave a scar, it will be a faint one at that.

She tells him as much, and he merely nods. He doesn’t say anything (save a few more choice swears) as she wraps the wound in makeshift bandages, and silently runs his fingers over the tight knots once she’s done. He appears to be thinking quite hard, and Azula, for one, would prefer he knocks it off before he blows a gasket (or, worse, ask one of the many questions she can’t even begin to answer).

“Firebenders don’t burn easily.”

She looks up sharply at his words. “Excuse me?”

“Firebenders don’t burn easily,” he repeats. “That’s what you said before.”

Azula shakes her head. “No, we don’t.”

“So then how do you know how to do all this first aid stuff?”

“My friends aren’t benders,” she replies with a shrug.

She doesn’t realize she was faking the nonchalance until Sokka calls her out on it. And that sort of accusation...well, she can’t just sit idly and take it. 

“Why does it even matter?” she challenges. “I helped you, didn’t I?”

“You used to help Zuko.”

Rage, sudden and blinding, erupts in Azula’s chest at the offensively nonchalant statement. “Excuse me?”

“After your father…”

“What my father did to Zuko,” she snarls, “was none of my concern.”

Sokka’s eyes narrow. “So, what? You just watched him heal himself, then? Is that how you figured it out?”

The vice around Azula’s lung clamps tighter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s funny,” Sokka spits, not a trace of humor in sight. “Every time I think you actually care about him, you say some shit to prove me wrong.”

Azula’s fists clench at her sides. The fire, so long trapped dormant inside her, flares. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you to watch your tongue?”

“She didn’t get the chance to before your people _murdered her!”_

Sparks simmer in Azula’s mouth, pulled tight in a sneer. “I dare say that’s something we have in common.”

“Your mom isn’t—nevermind.”

“What?” Azula can’t help but mock. “Can’t accept the fact that maybe _my_ life wasn’t perfect either?”

“That’s not what I—“

“I was a child!”

Her voice is loud, incredibly so. It’s the largest exhalation of breath since that day she spent shackled to the ground in the palace courtyard, spewing flames into the ether as she was forced to kneel upon the same tiles that bruised her brother’s knees years ago. Ash and dust, tears and panicked yells.

Laughter. Screaming. Silence.

“I was a child,” she whispers. “I was a child, too.”

Something shamefully close to a sob works its way out of her throat.

“I’m sorry.”

Her gaze snaps up to meet the peasant’s comfortingly piercing eyes. “I don’t want your pity.”

Sokka swallows and nods. Azula’s chest, once an inferno, now feels achingly empty.

“We should see if they have any information,” he says eventually, gesturing to the unconscious bounty hunters 

Evidently he’d opted to ignore the giant elephant-rat now obnoxiously inhabiting the metaphorical room, which is all well and good in Azula’s book.

She pushes herself up to stand, brushing a few bits of stray dirt off her pants. Sokka follows suit with a fruitful array of curses, then picks up a piece of the campfire’s kindling to use as a makeshift torch.

When Azula opts to summon a flame to her hand instead, he makes no comment.

Unfortunately, the first downed enemies she inspects are void of anything remotely useful. Sure, she pockets a small coin purse from one, and a handful of dried fruit from another; but a few meager supplies will do little to protect them from the potentially sizable threat lurking in the unknown.

“Hey, check this out!”

Azula looks up from the unconscious oaf at her feet to see Sokka brandishing a wrinkled piece of parchment.

“It looks like a memo from some guy named Ajax,” he explains as she approaches.

Azula frowns, then makes sure to keep her hair a safe distance from the torch as she peers over his shoulder.

 _“Aijan,”_ she corrects with a groan. “It’s from Aijan.”

“Who?”

“He’s the director of the ranch. I’m sure he’s just _dying_ to have his star patient back.”

“You? A star patient? Sounds fake to me.”

She squints even closer at the paper with a huff, willing the torch’s flames a bit higher with a twist of her wrist.

“It looks like he sent this out an hour ago.”

“Then how did these assholes already find out?” Sokka asks.

“He must’ve sent it to the nearby bandit hideouts,” she replies with a shrug. “Though I don’t doubt the entire archipelago will have the news by sunrise.”

“Hey, maybe you’ll get a wanted poster,” Sokka jokes.

Azula sighs. “How quaint.”

“So what do we do?”

“I thought you were the strategist?”

“Har, har,” Sokka says, rolling his eyes. “But you’re right, I do have a plan.”

Azula forces herself to bite back a caustic comment about him being too eager. (She shudders internally when she realizes what the statement’s implications would mean about her brother.)

“Those bounty hunters didn’t have any mounts,” Sokka explains. “That means they must have walked here.”

“And that helps us how, exactly?”

“There’s gotta be a rendezvous somewhere nearby, and that means transportation.”

“So you’re suggesting we saunter into the same place that sent these men after us?”

Maybe she should have spent less time tending to his burn, and more checking for a head wound.

“Not as us,” Sokka corrects, lifting a jacket from Agni-knows-where and draping it across his shoulders. “As _them.”_

Azula frowns, her mind wandering to Pabu and Naga.

“You can thank me for my genius,” the peasant continues cheekily. “I’ll wait.”

“It could work,” she admits. “But the ostrich-horses…”

“They’ll be okay, Azula.” He says the words so softly, so _earnestly;_ so heart-wrenchingly similarly to the gentle reassurances her brother used to offer. (Will _still_ offer, once they find him.) “Zuko’s the one that needs us right now.”

He yanks the coat off another bounty hunter, giving it a symbolic brush-off (that doesn’t _begin_ to remove even the most microscopic of metaphysical dust) and holding it out to her.

“I suppose you’re right.”

She takes the cloak from his outstretched hand, clasping it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. The wet earth clinging to it positively reeks, and she makes sure sure to hold it as far from her body as humanly possible before she sends it up in flames.

“What the hell was that for?” Sokka yelps.

“Come on,” Azula says, pulling her own, less disgusting hood over her head. “I said I’d go along with your harebrained little plan, not that I’d sacrifice my dignity.”

“Whatever,” Sokka mutters. “Let’s go.”

Azula waits until after he finishes adjusting his scabbard and silly bag before allowing the fire to flicker out. Then, and only then, does she allow herself a small smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment? spare comment in this trying time?
> 
> yes i changed the chapter count, itll probably change again tbh so just bear with me


	31. usurper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Sokka thought traveling with Azula was miserable before, he was sorely mistaken. He kind of wants to throttle Past Sokka for taking the trip for granted, because now he’s hobbling miserably forward with nothing but an (only slightly!) injured leg and a dangerous firebender for company.
> 
> or: the search continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for minor violence, mention of blood, drugging, homophobia (all of which can be avoided by skipping the first section, i’ll put a summary in end notes), alcohol and racism

Zuko’s world consists of whispers and shadows. His surroundings are dulled, his senses muted. Sometimes he thinks he hears voices; other times, it’s caustic laughter. There’s a constant throbbing in his chest nearly as excruciating as the migraine suffocating him. He is a mess of dried blood and chapped lips, and he can’t quite remember if he’s always been so broken.

Something tells him that he’s no stranger to the pain.

He fades in and out, oscillating between miserably conscious and blissfully unaware. He prefers the moments he spends floating just beneath the surface. The ones where he doesn’t feel the bruises painting his skin or the ache of his arms pulled taut behind his back. He thinks he has visitors, though their encounters often give way to fitful sleep before he has the chance to truly process them. Once in a while he catches glimpses of Sokka or Uncle in the periphery of his vision, but they always vanish before he can choke out the apologies trapped in his throat. It’s probably better this way, because at least it protects him from their inevitable rejection.

He’s dragged out of the comfortable numbness by a tight fist in his hair, wrenching it so tightly it’s a wonder the strands aren’t pulled right out of the follicles. His scalp stings something fierce, and when he blinks away the black spots in his vision, he sees an eerie, red face peering down at him. It looks like some sort of monster, all harsh lines and gnarled teeth. Something about it tugs at recognition in the back of his head, but his lucidity is still too far from his reach. (He doesn’t think he wants to find it in the first place.)

“Where is Ozai?” The maniacal grin on the wooden face seems to twist with the harsh words.

(Wait, wooden? Since when are faces wooden?)

(The thought is gone before he can think too much about it.)

“Where,” the creature in front of him repeats, “is Ozai?”

The question trickles slowly through the fog in his brain, and he scrunches his nose in confusion.

“Th’ palace,” he slurs out.

Because where else would he be? Is this some sort of test?

The fingers winding in his hair—why are there fingers in his hair?—tug harshly, and he lets out an involuntary whimper. _Pathetic._

“Don’t play dumb with me, boy. Tell us where to find him.”

“I don’…” Agni, why is it so hard to _think?_ “‘m banished.”

He doesn’t know what the statement means, doesn’t process the uncoordinated movements of his tongue until they’re over. His thoughts are messy, truth and lies all jumbled up.

Then there’s a fist slamming into his temple, and the world flickers away. He chases after the darkness, even as a sharp pain in his scalp yanks him back. _Let me go,_ he wants to scream.

His brain rattles in his skull. It’s too much, _too much,_ and he feels tears brimming in his right eye. (Shouldn’t this latest display of weakness be in the left as well? He searches for the answer in the recesses of his memory and finds nothing but flames.)

He tries to flinch away as a rough hand grabs his face, fingernails digging into his cheeks with a fierce grip and forcing him to meet the dark chasms where the red demon’s eyes should be.

“Listen closely, traitor. If you want to die with even a shred of honor, you’ll tell us where the rightful Fire Lord is.”

 _Honor._ His brain short circuits at the word. It’s all-consuming, reverberating in his skull in time with his heartbeat. The world narrows until his entire existence has shrunken to the concept: _honor._

It festers inside him, tendrils snaking through his veins.

_Honor, honor, honor._

He thinks he may hear voices, but they’re insignificant. Nothing matters except for _honor;_ not the tugging at his hair, or the knuckles slamming into his jaw, or the impact of his head dropping against cold, damp earth.

“How long...kills him?”

“Master Ukano...two days.”

“Did you hear...Water Tribe savage?”

Zuko’s awareness resurfaces with these words. “Don’ call ‘im tha’.”

“Look at him,” the grinning face taunts. “Trying to defend the barbarian.”

Someone spits on the ground behind him. “Filthy fucking sodomite.”

The disdain sluggishly filters through his ears. Zuko waits for it to slip through the sieve of his flickering memory, only to find it’s dug its claws in. His face twists with the burning shame, and he dimly feels something warm and wet dripping from his nose.

He parts his lips and tastes blood. He wonders if the copper on his tongue is even real, or if it’s just the manifestation of his misery.

He decides it doesn’t matter; either way, he deserves it.

* * *

If Sokka thought traveling with Azula was miserable before, he was sorely mistaken. He kind of wants to throttle Past Sokka for taking the trip for granted, because now he’s hobbling miserably forward with nothing but an (only slightly!) injured leg and a dangerous firebender for company. It’s to the point that he even misses Naga, which is frankly absurd.

At least the wound on his thigh (which, did he mention is very minor and not at all serious?) has faded into a dull ache. It may just be the effect of the adrenaline that inherently comes with the unsettling presence of freaky blue flames on the torch he’s holding, but he’s not going to look a gift ostrich-horse in the mouth. (Dammit, now he’s thinking about Naga and the sweet luxury of not having to walk again!)

He’s not sure how long they’ve been following the bounty hunters’ footprints; personally, he’d estimate it somewhere in the range of fifty to a thousand years. 

Azula must be thinking along the same lines (or is just bored and wants to return to her life goal of berating him), because she asks, not for the first time, “How do you know we’re even going the right way?”

“I used to track animals all the time back home.”

(And no, he absolutely does not shoot a panicked glance at the ground to make sure they’re still on the right trail.)

“Hmm,” Azula hums. “And that was at your...village?”

“The South Pole,” he corrects gently. “But yeah, I guess you could call it a village.”

That seems to be the end of her surprisingly civil inquiry into his super impressive qualifications, and they lapse back into silence. 

“Wait,” Sokka realizes after a moment. “Didn’t you, like, follow us across the entire Earth Kingdom?”

Azula smirks. “While I’d love to take credit for that fun little escapade, I dare say I had other people better suited for such menial labor.”

“Huh. Guess the tracking thing doesn’t run in the family.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Well, yeah.” Sokka wrinkles his nose in confusion. “Because, you know, your brother hunted us all over the world.”

“I’m sure that was by no feat of his own. Honestly, I doubt Zuzu even knows how to read a map.”

“You do know he was literally the captain of a ship, right?”

Azula has no response to this, which Sokka takes as a win. The victory quickly sours when they once again return to miserable quiet. He kind of really wants to complain, if only just to add something to the atmosphere other than the annoying chirping of cricket-mice. He can’t, though, because he knows Azula would love nothing more than to throw everything back in his face. And sure, maybe this _was_ his idea. Maybe it just _happens_ to involve more physical labor than previously assumed. But hey, it’s not _his_ fault they got ambushed!

He sighs. Agonizing silence it is.

* * *

He nearly collapses with joy when they finally reach what looks like the only building in a 200-mile radius. His shoulders burn from carrying his bag and scabbard, and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a single square inch of his feet not covered in blisters.

The sight becomes much less relieving after he realizes it is, in fact, just a loud, dingy inn attached to an even louder, dingier tavern; and, oh yeah—it’s overflowing with bandits, and they have a _literal bounty_ on their heads. Well, Azula has a bounty; Sokka, upstanding citizen that he is, is just easily profiled and...okay, maybe this isn’t his best plan. (Cut him some slack—he’s a strategist, not _god.)_

“So,” he starts with a fake, very nervous nonchalance. “You should probably wait outside.”

Even though he’d extinguished the torch a ways back for secrecy (See? _Strategy),_ they’re close enough that the inn’s entry lights have no trouble illuminating Azula’s scowl.

“Not a chance.”

“You can’t come in. What if there’s a wanted poster?”

Azula scoffs, and Sokka steels himself for a snide comment about the sheer blasphemy of the notion that her loyal, peasantly subjects wouldn’t recognize their princess. (He mentally pats himself on the back for that, because he really hit the nail on the head with the Azula impression.)

“I’ll be fine,” she replies. “See?”

She tugs her hair free of its high bun so that it fans over her face, and then tugs the neck of her loose-fitting shirt up over her nose. She finishes bunching the tunic’s fabric at the back of her head and securing it with the hair tie around the same time Sokka completes his farewell to the world as he (thought he) knew it.

“Right,” Sokka says. “Cool, cool, cool.”

The worst part of Azula’s incognito look is that he can still clearly see the way she rolls her eyes.

“Come on,” she huffs, grabbing his elbow and dragging him forward. “We don’t have time to waste.”

The cantina is popping when they push through the doors. Loud music from a small band and raucous laughter fill the air, punctuated by random beefy guys slamming their pint glasses down every five seconds. It kind of reminds Sokka of the crowd at the Earth Rumbles, but with less entertaining ass-kicking and way more testosterone.

“I’m going to secure us a ride to Caldera,” Azula announces from his side. “Try not to get into too much trouble.”

She pulls out the coin purse he watched her pilfer from one of their attackers earlier—yup, it was just as satisfying as it sounds—and disappears into the sea of tables. She thankfully doesn’t stick out, as a decent number of the patrons also have their faces covered; and, loathe as he is to admit it, the girl is annoyingly crafty, so he’s not too worried.

“Wait,” he says to no one in particular. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Order something, asshole.”

He swears he jumps ten feet in the air at the gruff voice somehow coming from right next to him.

”What the hell—oh.” He cuts himself off, sheepishly meeting the eyes of the bartender he hadn’t noticed wandering over. “Right, sure.”

He nervously slides onto one of the barstools, offering his new friend _(nightmare source)_ a shaky smile. “What do you, uh, recommend?”

The bartender glowers at him. The motion tugs at a thin scar cutting stretching from her upper lip down to her chin, off-colored and jagged. 

“Are you even old enough to drink?”

“Hey!” Sokka protests. “I’m almost nineteen!”

“Jeez, calm down. Do I look like I care?”

Sokka gives her a quick once-over, taking in the machete strapped to her hip and the rough jacket nearly identical to the stolen one he’s currently wearing. He spots some dark splatters on the burgundy fabric, and he sincerely hopes they’re from alcohol and not, you know, _blood._

“...No?”

The bartender sighs. “I’ll get you some sake.”

Sokka nods to her as she turns to pour his drink, and continues the anxious motion until a monstrous pour of rice wine is set on the counter in front of him. He takes a tentative sip, and has to hold back the instinctual gag; Spirits, this shit is _strong._ Like, way stronger than the rice wine he’s used to.

He really, _really_ hopes he wasn’t just poisoned. 

He gives the drink a minute to settle in his stomach (and ideally not melt his insides) before he remebers he should probably be doing something productive, like searching for information. His boyfriend is missing, remember? (Also, he can’t give Azula something else to hold over his head. She’s arrogant enough as it is.)

“So,” he says awkwardly. “You make a mean drink, Miss…?”

The bartender scowls at him.

“Uh, this is the part where you tell me your name.”

“People call me Blade.”

“Ooh, sick name! Is it because of the, you know?” He’s already traced a diagonal line across his lips with his finger by the time he realizes that may be a teensy bit rude. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s actually really, um, badass?”

He didn’t mean that last part to come off as a question, and he wants to drop-kick his stupid, still-cracking voice for it.

“I’m Wang, by the way,” he adds as a peace offering. “Wang Fire.”

Blade (damn, that really is a sick-ass name) just rolls her eyes and leaves to serve another patron a few stools away. With her gone, Sokka can now see what appears to be an array of bounties and flyers tacked to the grimy wall. He squints and skims through the parts of the faded, overlapping text he can make out.

_“The Infamous Meelo: Wanted...or Alive for...”_

_“Seeking Bear and...Smuggler.”_

_“Long Live...and Death to the Usurper.”_

_“War Criminal Meelo…”_

Damn, this Meelo guy has a _lot_ of wanted posters. Maybe that’s a good thing, if it means Fire Nation jerks hate him. (It’s still about to give Sokka a complex, because the title of Bandit Public Enemy No. 1 should totally be his.) Either way, the dude’s treasonous escapades don’t really help him right now. Although, maybe with the reward money...No. Not now, brain. 

Sokka stares down at his drink, then forces himself to take another burning sip. It chases away the bitter taste that _“Usurper”_ left in his mouth, albeit with a grosser, more gag-worthy flavor.

Hold on.

_“Usurper.”_

He leans forward in his seat, trying to get a closer look. The flyer is mostly covered by the other sheets of parchment, corners and strips of even more stupid fucking wanted posters layered on top of it.

“Uh, excuse me?” He waves Blade back over. “Could I, uh, see that poster? The ‘Usurper’ one?”

“Whatever.” Her reply is flippant, but she does as he asks.

The majority of the ink is faded, and he can only read a few of the formerly covered characters. He blanches when he sees _“Capture”_ and _“Overthrow.”_ Spirits, he’s going to be sick.

He swallows his nausea and turns to the bartender. “Do you know who posted this?”

“What do I look like, some kind of snitch?”

“Well, I- I mean no, definitely not. I just, uh—“ He fakes a cough, as though that will grant him the time he needs to come up with a worthwhile excuse. “I’m having trouble reading it, is all.”

Blade huffs, giving Sokka another once-over. “You know, you don’t look like Fire Nation.”

Sokka tenses, suddenly hyper-aware of the melanin in his skin.

“I’m from the colonies,” he stammers out. “There’s some Water Tribe blood on my mother’s side, so…”

“Huh. Guess it makes sense you can’t read, then.”

“Yep,” Sokka replies tightly. (He definitely meant the whole ‘difficulty reading’ comment in regards to the near-invisible writing, but if this will get him the answers he so desperately needs, he isn’t about to protest.)

“Now, explain to me why a colony brat wants to stick his nose in one of my patron’s business.”

Dammit. 

“There’s no nose-sticking! No nostrils, no siree! I’m just from…” he trails off momentarily, wracking his hyperactive brain. “Yu Dao. Yeah, I’m from Yu Dao. Wang Fire from Yu Dao, that’s me. And I’m- I’m really mad, because Zuko—I mean, uh, the Fire Lord—wants to, uh, make us all leave?”

Blade huffs. “Yeah, I heard about the Earth King pushing him around.”

Sokka presses his palms down into the countertop before they can curl into fists.

“Can you just tell me about the fucking flyer now?” he snaps.

He jolts at the feeling of nails digging into his shoulder.

“What my dear, tactless companion meant,” Azula says with terrifying calm, “is that we would greatly appreciate any information you could spare.”

“And what _I_ meant,” Blade replies coolly, “is exactly what I told your friend: I don’t rat on my loyal customers.”

“I’m a customer!” Sokka protests.

He gestures to his drink for emphasis, and proceeds to accidentally knock the glass over in the process. He watches in horrified shock as it spreads across the counter, soaking the parchment and dripping over the side (and onto his pants, _ew)._

“Uh…”

Azula’s gaze darts between the ruined flyer and Sokka’s mortified expression before turning to Blade, who appears to be about two seconds from calling whatever undoubtedly scary person serves as a bouncer here to kick them to the curb.

“Listen here,” she hisses, leaning forward and grabbing the bartender’s sleeve to hold her in place. “You’re going to tell us what we want to know.”

“Or what?” she challenges.

“Or,” Azula replies sharply, “we’re going to see just how flammable all this alcohol is.”

She holds up a single finger and summons a flame to it. Blade flinches back ever so slightly, and Sokka can only imagine the predatory grin hidden beneath Azula’s disguise.

“Well?” she asks, beginning to lower her hand towards the liquor coating the counter. “Which is it going to be?”

Blade stands her ground for a few more seconds before relenting. “Fine, I’ll tell you!”

Azula nods; her movement halts, but her flame doesn’t flicker.

“It was some guy in a red mask, okay? Part of this group that’s been coming here since the end of the war.”

Sokka feels something sink in his gut. It only intensifies when Azula demands elaboration.

“I think they call themselves the New Ozai Society? Something weird like that.” She pauses to fix Sokka with a scornful stare. “Can you tell her to put that flame away now?”

Sokka, as a matter of fact, can do no such thing, because his brain is going a mile a minute, visiting and revisiting the three simple words that he should’ve known all along. Tui and La, how could those cultists _not_ be behind this attack? They need to get back to Caldera, and they need to get there _fast._

Because if they’re too late? If something terrible happens because he was too distracted by his hatred for the girl who now looks ready to kill from the mere mention of her asshole father’s name?

Sokka doesn’t think he could ever forgive himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i based this on the cantina from star wars what about it
> 
> also if you skipped the first part, zuko is super out of it and is interrogated about ozai’s location (fr, that’s literally it lol)


	32. confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula drags the peasant out of the bar with a vice grip before he can so much as yelp. “Start talking before I make you.”
> 
> or: realizations, motion sickness, and babysitting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late and i’m not totally sure how to feel about it but uh enjoy??
> 
> cw for mentions of alcohol and brief discussion of nausea/vomiting

Azula drags the peasant out of the bar with a vice grip before he can so much as yelp. Her nails dig into the meat of his bicep without remorse, tightening even further as she wrenches him into the side of the building. He hisses when his back hits the wall, and she’s quick to pin him in place with a tense forearm across his collarbones.

She’s tempted to shift the crushing force onto his neck, but the imbecile unfortunately needs access to his windpipe if he’s going to answer her questions—which he’s going to do, if he knows what’s good for him.

“Start talking before I make you,” she snarls.

She half expects him to play dumb, as though she hadn’t overheard his particularly _illuminating_ chat with that standoffish bartender. She can’t say she’d particularly mind if he did try to pull some kind of stunt, because she’s just itching to set something on fire.

Instead, Sokka just shrinks in on himself with a pitiful sigh. “I messed up.”

Oh, of that Azula has no doubt.

“Care to elaborate?” she huffs.

“There’s this group, okay? Well, I guess they’re more of a cult. Which, I mean, technically _is_ a group, but—“

“Get,” she interrupts with a growl, “to the point.”

“Right, so…” He takes a deep breath, and Azula has never wanted to strangle somebody quite so badly. “There are these creeps that call themselves the New Ozai Society.”

Azula tenses at her father’s name, but forces back the amalgamation of anger and fear roiling in her gut with a practiced, calm fury.

“They want to put your dad back on the throne.”

The nausea creeping up her throat grows stronger. She pushes it down with a renewed vigor.

“So, what?” she snaps. “You knew about this and didn’t do anything?”

Sokka has the audacity to look sheepish. “Not exactly…”

Azula narrows her eyes, pressing the peasant even harder against the wall. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

It’s not a question, and Sokka knows it. If he posesses even half a brain cell—a fact of which Azula is frankly uncertain—he’ll spit it out before she makes him.

“We...may or may not have been doing an undercover investigation?”

Agni, is he serious? Does he not understand that her brother’s life—her nation’s future—hangs in the balance?

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Um. Me and Mai?”

It’s infuriating, the way the peasant seems to think that phrasing everything as some sort of uncertainty absolves him of any blame.

He apparently takes her silence as confusion, because he’s quick to unnecessarily elaborate. 

“You know,” he says. “The knifey one.”

Azula doesn’t gratify his idiotic statement with a response. There are more pressing matters at hand.

“And what did my dear brother think about all of this?”

Sokka doesn’t reply. It’s an answer in and of itself, albeit one that makes Azula’s blood boil.

“Of course,” she says sarcastically. “Why ever would you tell him about a threat to his life?”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Sokka snaps. “Besides, it’s not like they’re the first to try it.”

It’s then that Azula realizes the foolishness of the notion that she was the only one to oppose the succession of the Dragon Throne.

The epiphany must be splashed across her face like the most shameful of paint, because the peasant retreats from the offensive.

“We really were keeping an eye on it,” he says with disgusting earnestness. “It’s just, the leader of the group is Mai’s dad, so she didn’t want us to do anything too...rash.”

Azula can’t say she’s surprised. She hasn’t seen Mai’s father since Omashu, which is more than fine by her. He was always a sniveling sycophant, embarrassingly eager to lick the boots on Father’s feet. It’s only logical that he’d grow more desperate as the years passed.

What she _doesn’t_ understand is how Mai chose to protect him over Zuko. Then again, this _is_ the same girl who opted to betray her for her brother, so her decision-making skills clearly aren’t too well-founded.

“So you skipped off to the South Pole,” she surmises with a glare, “and left Zuzu’s life in the hands of someone too weak to do what needed to be done?”

“What, kill her father?” Sokka asks incredulously.

“Obviously. Try to keep up.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Is it?” She shoves him back harder, leaning forward until her face is mere inches from his. “Because it sounds to me like it’s your fault my brother is in the hands of the enemy.”

_Because it sounds to me like I should have ended Ozai’s life when I had the chance._

“I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

What Azula _wants_ to hear is an admission of guilt, a reprieve from the blame she’s been subconsciously heaping upon herself. But since when has she ever gotten what she wanted?

“I know I messed up, so please just give me a chance to make it right.”

Sokka’s plea for atonement finds a shameful twin in Azula’s own heart. It saps at the last vestiges of her energy, and she releases him with a sigh. 

“We leave for Caldera in half an hour,” she says eventually. “Try to come up with a way to be useful by then.”

She walks away before he can splutter out some sort of slapdash protest, because she has her own preparations to attend to if she is to visit her friend’s childhood home in a matter of hours. She just hopes the bartender is willing to overlook their squabble and serve her something strong enough to quell the nerves.

And if she’s not...well, Azula has never shied away from using her fire.

* * *

Not to name any names, but Sokka is more than a little peeved at whoever decided the back of a rickety seafood transport wagon was the perfect vehicle to hitch a ride to Caldera in. (It’s Azula. He’s talking about Azula. It needs to be said, okay? Sorry not sorry.)

“It smells like something died in here,” he groans. “And then something ate the corpse and died, too, so it’s now just an even grosser double-corpse.”

Azula, seated against the opposite wall of the cramped space, rolls her eyes. “Could you stop being so dramatic?”

“No, I can’t!”

His voice pitches up into a squeak as the cart drives over a massive rock in the road, sending his head crashing into the barrel at his back with a sharp, involuntary clank of his teeth. For La’s sake, does this man even know how to drive?

“This was the earliest delivery to the city,” his suspiciously composed travel partner explains, as though that makes the situation any better. “Besides, our coin purse wasn’t exactly full.”

Okay, Sokka is definitely all for cheap, speedy transport to Caldera; but _Spirits,_ at what cost? He asks as much, through the nausea and exhaustion churning in his gut. Azula, as usual, looks wholly unamused.

“We’ll be there within the hour,” she says with a disheartened glower. “You can deal with it until then.”

Sokka’s growing headache begs to differ.

“And then we’re heading to Mai’s?” he asks in an attempt to distract himself.

It’s not a far-fetched question—really, it’s not!—but Azula fixes him with such wry disappointment that he begins to think otherwise.

“Duh,” she replies. “Aren’t you supposed to be the strategist?”

“I _am_ the strategist!” he protests. “I just wanted to make sure that we, uh, knew where we’re going.”

They sit in silence for a moment. It’s more than enough time for Azula to perfect her look of disappointment. “You don’t know where she lives, do you?”

Sokka elects not to gratify her with an answer. It’s probably the wrong choice, because it only makes him more aware of his sickening anxiety and the non-stop rocking of their luxury ride. Oh, and the stink of fish, which really isn’t doing his nausea any favors. 

The cart hits a particularly jarring bump in the road that sounds suspiciously like a body, and Sokka feels his brain rattle in his skull at the same time his heart flies into his throat.

Wait, no; that’s definitely just vomit.

“So,” he says sheepishly, dragging out the word. “Exactly how much trouble do you think I’ll be in if I puke in one of these barrels?”

* * *

_The oppressive heat of the Boiling Rock is suffocating, the air thick and humid. Sweat beads on Mai’s forehead and drips down her back. She reaches up to brush it away, but finds her wrists are pinned. She struggles against the bonds shackling her to what she now realizes is a chair, wrought iron hot against her skin._

_The cell she’s trapped in is vaguely familiar. It tugs at something in the back of her head, a recognition just out of reach. She knows it isn’t the space she shared with Ty Lee during their confinement, but she selfishly wishes it was, if only so that she could have her comforting presence._

_Sluggishly, she realizes it’s one of her uncle’s interrogation rooms._

_“Fuck you.”_

_She looks up from the futile tugging against her restraints._ _“Kei Lo?”_

_“How could you lie to me like that?” His words are sharp, eyes hard as ice. “I thought we had something!”_

_“We did,” she tries to protest, but her mouth refuses to move._

_“The truth is,” Kei Lo continues bitterly, “I guess I don’t know you.”_

_He steps closer until he’s looming over her, a murderous expression on his face._

_“Please,” she gasps. “I never meant to hurt you!”_

_(Is that even the truth? She thinks it might have been, once. Spirits, what kind of horrible person even has to ask themself that?)_

_“If you cared,” he spits, “you wouldn’t have pretended to love me in the first place.”_

_Somewhere amidst the accusation, his voice had risen in pitch. Mai doesn’t register the change until it’s her own mouth forming the words, her own hurt covered up by a forced monotone as she stares down at the boy who broke her heart._

_Who is even there, pinned in that chair? Is it Zuko? Kei Lo?_

_(Does it matter, if she’s simply doomed to eternal heartbreak either way?)_

_The ache in her chest is growing unbearable, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She’s choking on unspoken apologies, on bitter regrets and misplaced passions. She can’t breathe, she can’t—_

Mai’s eyes fly open with a gasp. She’s in her room at Aunt Mura’s; she’s fine, she’s safe. Why, then, is it still so hard to breathe?

The answer comes in the form of a seven-year-old perched atop her chest.

“Tom-Tom,” she gasps out, nudging him off of her lungs and taking in a much-needed gulp of air.

“Mai!” he shouts. “Get up! I’m hungry!”

Mai groans at the insistent shaking of tiny hands on her shoulder. This is why she never, ever wants to have kids.

“Okay,” she sighs. “Give me some space.”

Tom-Tom seems to consider the request for a moment, but seems to realize it’s much more of a demand when Mai narrows her eyes. He nearly trips as he climbs off the bed, and it’s only by some miracle that he manages to stumble his way out of her room.

Mai waits until she hears him close the door to the room he shares with their mother before she stretches her arms up with a yawn. A glance at the candle beside her bed reveals a significant length of remaining wax between the first embedded nail and the metal plate it’s meant to clang against. She blows the flame out with a huff of annoyance, staring disdainfully at the too-small pool of melted wax.

She’ll admit the loss of sleep was partially her fault, seeing as how she was the one to offer to watch Tom-Tom to begin with. Her mother and aunt had just looked so excited at the prospect of a weekend trip to an exotic seed vendor on one of the Fire Nation’s lower islands, and Mai had plenty of experience dealing with her brother.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t bemoaning the choice, though. Still, she forces herself out of bed with a groan and slips into a dress. If she had more of a presence of mind, she’d be embarrassed by the casual, low-cut fabric that’s much better suited for the privacy of one’s home than a walk on the town. Unfortunately for her public image, her brain is much too consumed by anxiety to care. She hasn’t heard from Ty Lee since her panicked visit the night before, and the memory of her girlfriend’s frantic knocking at the apartment’s back entrance—her breathless admission that Zuko was missing—makes her sick.

She’s sorely tempted to storm the palace herself and demand answers, but the loud, child-sized feet stomping around the apartment are an incessant reminder of why she very much cannot do so. (That, and the fact that, as the daughter of nobility, she knows better than most the political import of keeping up appearances.)

Tom-Tom crashes into her with an excited squeal when she emerges from her room, and she has to resist the urge to sigh. Dampening her brother’s mood would only create more work for her in the end, and she’s frazzled enough as it is.

“Let’s go.”

The flatness of her tone seemingly goes directly over Tom-Tom’s tiny head, because he all but wrenches her arm out of its socket as he tugs her towards the door. She manages to hold him in place long enough to wrangle a pair of shoes onto him, which she decides qualifies as good enough.

He talks the entire way to the bakery, prattling on about some scary spirit legend that Mai should probably work to dissuade him of before their mother returns. Instead, she silently squeezes his hand and prays that he can continue to entertain himself, because she sure as hell isn’t up for small talk. (Or, Agni forbid, one of Tom-Tom’s favorite interrogations into the meaning of life.)

The market is strangely busy for the early hour. She keeps a tight grip on his wrist as they weave through the crowd towards the baker, whose storefront is nearly invisible behind the throng of people. The faint aroma of the shop’s famous sticky buns acts as a welcome guide, and she’s happily surprised to find the line to order isn’t horribly long. But then…

“What are all these people doing here?”

The baker at the counter pauses from where he’s assembling her order. He looks far from amused, which is wholly undue, considering Mai’s already paid him.

“There’s a new bounty.” The man’s customer service voice is flat enough to rival Mai’s own, but it still sends a shiver up her spine.

“Whose?”

The word is nearly impossible to grit out, syllables weighed down in her throat by the knowledge that only a high profile missing person would garner such public attention. Someone like, say, the Fire Lord, whose absence has the potential to ignite civil war.

That is not the answer that drips from the baker’s displeased mouth, though. No, his thin lips form an insurmountably worse name than Zuko’s, one which Mai’s brain, in a slapdash effort at self-assurance, had failed to even consider as a contender for the cruel fate that has befallen her friend. (One which made too much sense and also none at all; which left her with more questions than answers and a stinging, familiar ache of betrayal.)

“It’s Princess Azula. She’s escaped.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really had stanky fishy playing on repeat in my head as i wrote this huh
> 
> also candle clocks were a real thing, you can read more about them [here](https://www.ancientworldreview.com/2018/11/the-ancient-alarm-clock.html) if you’re a history nerd like me


	33. larceny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka is, in no uncertain terms, a genius. Seriously, his intelligence is unparalleled. So he really doesn’t appreciate the way Azula is glaring at him instead of worshipping him and his amazing, completely foolproof plan.
> 
> or: the capital is reached, and casual felonies are committed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for non-graphic emeto (basically sokka is carsick between “perhaps the sour” and “danger had passed”)

Azula has imagined her homecoming to Caldera more times than she’d care to admit. Even in her most miserable of daydreams and far-fetched escape plots, the capital always stood as a shining beacon of hope.

But the fantasy—the proverbial light at the end of the endless, darkened tunnel—is pitifully lackluster. She wonders if this is how her brother felt after their triumphant return from Ba Sing Se, all coiled up and conflicted inside.

Perhaps the sour mood has something to do with the steadily building anxiety in her chest, or the uncertainty of everything. Or maybe it’s just the aftereffect of watching Sokka hurl his guts up onto the side of the road the moment they disembarked from their transport.

“Are you done?” she asks impatiently.

Sokka groans and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Can I just,” he pants, “have a minute?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Fine. Just hurry up.”

She receives a shaky thumbs up in response, and turns away before the foul image of her brother’s uncomposed boyfriend can further sear itself into her retinas.

There isn’t much else to look at, unfortunately, as they’d taken their leave before the wagon had reached the central market. It was technically a strategic decision, seeing as they sorely need to keep a low profile; but she won’t deny the added bonus of relief in putting more than a few inches between her and Sokka’s motion sickness.

She hums to herself—some infuriatingly catchy tune Ty Lao constantly sings about Ba Sing Se—until the awful retching noises stop, then continues through the remainder of the melody on the off-chance that the silence didn’t actually indicate that the danger had passed.

“Hey, I know that song!”

Azula turns to face Sokka, who’s bounding towards her with a startling amount of enthusiasm for someone who looks seconds from keeling over.

“Stay right there.” She holds up a hand to halt him in place before he can get any closer. “Don’t come near me until you’ve washed your mouth.”

Sokka rolls his eyes as he takes a dramatic swig from his waterskin, swishing and obnoxiously gargling a few times with an annoying amount of eye contact. He spits the water out into the gutter and fixes Azula with a smirk. “Better?”

There’s some stray liquid dribbling down his chin, and his eyes are horribly bloodshot, but… “Good enough.”

Sokka fist-pumps and jogs the rest of the way to her side. “Okay, which way to Mai’s?”

“Well,” Azula starts, “her father is a noble—or, was one, I suppose—so his residence would be in the Southern Quarter. I wonder if we could get a map…”

“We don’t need a map.”

Sokka says it with such self-assurance that Azula’s skin prickles.

“The sun rises in the east,” he explains, brows furrowed as if Azula should possess the knowledge of a common vagabond. “So this way—“ He jerks a thumb to his left. “—is south.”

Azula gives a terse nod before setting a brisk pace in the direction he’d indicated, brushing past him without a word. She’s fairly certain he mutters something unsavory under his breath, but she’s more than perfected the skill of ignoring criticism.

They continue down the still-empty alleyway as the sun slowly climbs in the sky, warming them with an almost oppressive heat. She’d nearly forgotten the thick humidity that pervaded Caldera for most of the year, and her time spent in the more temperate climate outside the volcano’s rim has left her body sorely maladept. It appears that Sokka is similarly soaked in sweat, and she’d take some small comfort in that comradery if not for the way he’d begun to incessantly hum.

“Would you cut that out?”

Sokka lets out an affronted gasp. “You were _literally_ doing the same thing earlier!”

“So?”

“So it’s totally your fault for getting it stuck in my head!”

“Agni, could you keep your voice down?” she hisses.

Sokka winces sheepishly. “Right. Wanted fugitives. My bad.”

Azula rolls her eyes and continues to walk. The buildings are beginning to look slightly more familiar, though she’d admittedly never strayed this far from Mai’s residence on foot. (Palanquin rides and secret rooftop explorations just weren’t the same.)

“Question,” Sokka says, as though that’s the proper way to start a sentence. “Why does Mai’s family even have a place here?”

Is the idle chatter better or worse than the off-key singing? Azula isn’t quite sure. Still, she indulges him, because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to listen to his inevitable whining otherwise without setting something on fire.

“I told you,” she replies with a forced calm. “They’re nobles.”

“But I thought they were in Omashu.”

“You mean New Ozai?”

“No, _Omashu,”_ Sokka corrects bitterly. “Because I’m pretty sure we kidnapped Mai’s brother while we were there.”

Azula lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, I recall.”

“So then make it make sense.”

“In the Fire Nation,” Azula explains, “nobility must maintain a residence in the capital as well as whatever region they reside over.”

“Huh. That’s some stupid colonizer shit.”

Azula scowls. “No it’s not.”

“That sounds like something a stupid colonizer would say.”

“I’m not a—“ Azula cuts herself off with a huff, anger sparking deep within her chest. She feels smoke curling on her tongue, and exhales sharply through her nose. It must obscure her eyes, because for a moment, she swears her surroundings blur and darken. She blinks, and the world comes back. Huh.

She attempts to shake it off—it’s just a fluke, just an errant flare in the process of readjusting to her element—but her vision blackens again. Her head feels strangely floaty, lightning-like zaps popping behind her eyelids and disturbing her balance. What’s wrong with her?

When she finally returns to her center of gravity, it’s to Sokka’s concerned gaze trained unnervingly on her. They’d stopped walking at some point, and Sokka’s arm is held out slightly to the side, as though to catch her if she falls.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She pushes past him and his bizarre, wide-eyed stare; any longer, and she may have started feeling something as inane as _emotional._ “Come on, the building is just a few blocks that way.”

She stops to point diagonally to the right, and grunts as Sokka walks directly into her outstretched arm. He frowns and rubs at his sternum.

“Going down the main street seems...less than ideal.”

“What other choice do we have?” Azula replies. “We can’t exactly climb across the rooftops in broad daylight.”

Sokka raises his brows to a ridiculous degree. “Since when do you climb rooftops?”

Azula closes her eyes for a moment, and feels the phantom brush of a cool wind across her face. She feels the tickle of Ty Lee’s braid as she tilts her head back to laugh at Mai’s mockery of one of the noblemen’s horrible toupees; the warmth of tiny sparks flickering from her fingers and floating in the night air around them.

_“You’re right, he_ does _look like he has a koala-sheep on his head!” Ty Lee giggled, placing a hand on Mai’s shoulder as though to keep herself from falling off the edge of the awning._

_Azula leaned back on her elbows and kicked her legs back and forth. From her vantage point, she could see the nobles meandering up and down the street below. She imagined letting flames erupt from her feet, a showering of violent blue that Father said not even Great-Grandfather Sozin could produce. The chaos and screaming that would ensue—why, poor Zuzu would lose his mind!_

_She turned to her side to taunt her brother with the possibility only to be met with empty air. The little brat! He must have snuck around to act all mushy with Mai!_

_Azula gracefully spun in the opposite direction, ready to unleash an even larger wave of teasing. Yes, he was really in for it now. She felt the beginnings of a grin tugging at her lips as her eyes sought the familiar glint of Zuzu’s ever-crooked hairpiece._

_Except there was no gold. Not in any crown, nor in any eyes that blazed nearly as fiercely as her own. No, there was only Mai and Ty Lee, staring at her with poorly masked concern. Or was it pity? For their sakes, it had better not be._

_“Zuko isn’t here.”_

_It was Mai who spoke first, with a simple, monotone declaration._

_“I know that!” Azula snapped._

_“It’s okay,” Ty Lee said, laying a gentle palm on her shoulder. “We miss him, too.”_

_Azula was quick to shrug her off._

_“Why would I miss him?” she scoffed. “Missing people is for babies.”_

_Because Azula was twelve, and she was old enough to know better. She could bend lightning to her will, and sit in on important strategy meetings, and perform at the top of each and every one of her courses at the Royal Academy._

_Why was it so hard, then, to erase her miserable, disgraced brother from her mind? To take Father’s lead and banish him from her life?_

_“I don’t miss him,” she said again._

_Was the reminder for her poor, misguided friends or the treacherous loneliness burrowed deep in her chest? It didn’t matter; she’d keep repeating it until they all believed it, so help her Agni._

She comes back to herself to find Sokka once again staring at her in that unsettling way he’s so fond of.

“Hey,” he starts tentatively. “Are you—“

“If you ask me if I’m okay again, I swear to Agni I’ll set your pants on fire.”

She doesn’t know which is more satisfying: Sokka’s gulp of fear or the way he squeaks out “noted.”

“Good,” she replies tersely. “Now, come up with a way for us to get across the square.”

Sokka groans. “There’s an entire _square?”_

Azula blinks at him, unimpressed. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Can’t we just, like, cut around it?”

Ruefully, she shakes her head. “The entrances to all the buildings are facing it. It’s quite quaint, actually.”

“Ugh!” Sokka moans. “Stupid Fire Nation architecture!”

He manages to compose himself after a minute, his expression slipping into one of intense concentration.

“Okay, so rooftops are out of the question, and we can’t exactly waltz around with our faces covered. But then we’d be recognized…”

“You mean _I’d_ be recognized.”

Sokka waves her off. “Yeah, yeah. Semantics. So then...Wait, I’ve got it! We cover our faces!”

“Sorry, did you hit your head when I wasn’t looking?”

“No, I just mean—“ Sokka cuts himself off, shaking his likely concussed head. “Is there a market around here?”

“I think there’s one a few blocks back, but—“

 _“Great-thanks-bye!”_ He’s jogging away before Azula can so much as protest, only pausing momentarily to order her to wait in place until he returns over his shoulder.

Azula kicks a nearby pebble into the gutter with a huff. She decides, then, if Sokka isn’t back in ten minutes, she can’t be held responsible for her actions. Zuzu _is_ counting on her, after all.

(And maybe all that therapy truly amounted to something, because if she doesn’t find her brother she thinks that maybe, _just maybe,_ she might actually miss him.)

* * *

Sokka is, in no uncertain terms, a genius. Seriously, his intelligence is unparalleled. So he _really_ doesn’t appreciate the way Azula is glaring at him instead of worshipping him and his amazing, completely foolproof plan.

 _“This_ is what you wasted our money on?”

“Technically, it’s not our money,” Sokka corrects. “And this is totally going to work.”

Azula continues to stare skeptically at the makeup palette he’d deposited in her hand moments earlier.

“Come _on,”_ Sokka whines, already halfway through the process of coating his face in white paint. “You did the same thing in Ba Sing Se and literally took over the entire city!”

“Yes, well, I dare say even the lowest of subjects here possess more common sense than that idiotic king.”

Okay, she _may_ have a point—one which he agrees to all the more vehemently when he considers the way Kuei and his stupid (yet admittedly awesome) bear are currently on the warpath—but still!

“Look,” he says, wiping his fingers on the nearby wall before dipping them into the red dye. “Nobody’s going to pay too much attention to a couple of Kyoshi Warriors if they know what’s good for them.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Azula mutters. “But fine. Just know that if this fails, it’s completely your fault.”

Sokka just rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

It’s as he’s finishing applying his lipstick that he notices Azula’s...predicament. She’s pulled her hair up into a halfhearted top-knot, though the foresight has done little to prevent specks of paint from staining the strands by her ears. The paint that _is_ on her face is drying in clumps, and the red arches drawn overtop her eyes are horribly crooked. She’s squinting at the makeup container like it’s personally wronged her, and the expression isn’t doing her messy eyeliner any favors.

He awkwardly clears his throat, and Azula’s gaze snaps to him with an unnerving ferocity.

“What?” she snaps.

“I was just wondering if you, uh, needed any help.”

“Do I _look_ like I need help?”

Sokka grimaces. “Yes?”

He steels himself for Azula to make good on her threat of incinerating him on the spot and wishes this weary world goodbye. (Yes, he knows she technically only promised to flambe his pants, but if he loses what’s _under_ said pants, death may be a kinder fate.)

The flames never come. Instead, Azula thrusts the palette into his hands.

“You tell no one of this,” she hisses.

Sokka takes the makeup from her with a tiny smirk. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Now, close your eyes and try to stand still.”

Azula must really hate him, because she seemingly makes no effort whatsoever to do as he asks. It’s a long, arduous, _miserable_ process, but eventually she looks more or less like a passable Kyoshi Warrior.

“All done,” he says, smearing the excess paint off on the wall by his previous smudged handprint. (Ah, nothing like some good old fashioned property damage for the soul.)

Azula doesn’t thank him, but she also doesn’t berate him, which Sokka has learned is basically the equivalent. She pushes past him without a word, and he manages to keep his lips zipped as they complete the anxiety-inducing task of crossing the square. She was right in that it was the only entrance to the building she indicated as Mai’s, which is really just more evidence of why rich people—more specifically, rich _Fire Nation_ people—are the worst.

Still, nobody spares them more than a passing glance, so Sokka’s feeling pretty damn good about himself by the time they enter the lobby.

“Thank you, Sokka,” he says in an exaggerated falsetto. “Your super smart plan worked great!”

“Is that supposed to be me?” Azula asks with a glower.

“Duh!”

Azula rolls her eyes as she leads them up a set of ornate stairs. “You’re insufferable.”

“That didn’t sound like a ‘thank you’.”

“That’s because it wasn’t.”

Sokka brings a hand to his heart. “You wound me!”

“I will if you don’t move.”

Her calculating glare tells Sokka that she is very much serious, so he scoots out of the way of what he now realizes is a bizarrely fancy door. To his relief, there isn’t any light peeking out from underneath it; as much as he wants to pummel the shit out of the guy, Ukano’s presence right now would be a major hurdle.

Azula tries the knob, which jiggles but doesn’t budge. Sokka barely has enough self-preservation skills not to say “I told you so.”

“There’s no chance you have a spare key, right?”

Azula scowls and shakes her head.

“Okay, what about some hairpins?”

“Why?”

“Uh, to pick the lock?”

“You’re telling me _you_ know how to pick a lock?”

Sokka squawks indignantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Azula doesn't reply, but eventuallyslides a few pins out of her hair and stiffly hands them over, so that’s a win in Sokka’s book. He squints in concentration as he bends the makeshift tools and inserts them into the lock. The delicacy of the task is almost too much for him to manage; his hands are shaky with pent up adrenaline, and his hammering pulse is far louder than the soft clicks of the mechanism.

And wait, do doors in the Fire Nation lock differently? Because if they do, this failure definitely wouldn’t be his fault, and—

_Get a grip on yourself, Sokka. You helped invent the war balloon, for La’s sake!_

Right. He can do this. He leans forward so that his ear is mere centimeters away from the handle and restarts the task of prodding with steady, alternating motions. He forces himself to ignore Azula’s eyes, which he can feel oh-so-closely trained on him. Just a few more taps, a couple of twists, and then—there!

He leaps to his feet as the door slides open, unable to stop his grand “ta-da!” gesture. Azula appears unimpressed as she steps through the entryway, which is honestly kind of hurtful.

“Don’t tell me Zuzu taught you how to do that,” she says over her shoulder. 

Aww, a (semi)playful side comment; she really _does_ care!

“Nah,” Sokka replies, following her inside. “That was all Suki.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Azula says thoughtfully. “I really only spoke to her for a few minutes, but even then it was clear she possessed more intelligence than you and my brother combined.”

He wants to protest, but… “Okay, that’s valid.”

Azula simply smirks, and Sokka’s not convinced this isn’t all some elaborate hallucination. Then she goes and shoots mini bursts of fire into the sculpted torches adorning the walls, strongly confirming that yes, she is very much real.

He instinctively flinches back at the flames, but smoothly plays it off like he’s just reaching back to close and lock the door behind him. Yeah, Azula doesn’t suspect a thing. 

Once he manages to (super casually) get his breathing back under control, he has enough presence of mind to actually take in his surroundings. And boy, are they dismal.

“Damn, Mai lives like this?”

“Mai’s _father_ does,” Azula corrects. “Didn’t she tell you the rest of the family moved out?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sokka rushes to cover. “Just, you know, slipped my mind.”

He studiously turns his attention away from his poignant lack of communication with Mai and back to the mess of dirty dishes, dusty countertops and mysterious stains that, now that he thinks about it, 100% screams _single man._

“Dibs on not digging through the trash!”

He isn’t ashamed to admit that he all but scurries into one of the adjoining rooms, because that shit in the sitting room was _rancid._ (Spirits, is that what his room looked like growing up? Katara deserves a major apology when all of this is over.)

In other, less-nauseating news, he seems to have coincidentally fled into some sort of home office. Score! He eagerly begins to comb through the papers scattered across the massive desk. There’s got to be something here, right?

Wrong. Oh so horribly wrong. Sokka wants to tear his hair out.

“He’s a terrorist _and_ a landlord? How can one dude be that evil?”

He hears a derisive snort through the wall, and pokes his head into the hall to see Azula shuffling through what looks like a bedroom. There’s enough black lace decorating the walls that Sokka can hazard a fairly confident guess that the room belonged to Mai. Even the fancy canopy bed is draped in the stuff! How could that even be comfortable?!

(The stupidly jealous, self-destructive part of Sokka’s brain wonders if Zuko knows the answer.)

“Can I help you?” Azula asks drily. 

Sokka doesn’t miss the way she subtly angles her body to block his view of the half-open armoire, and if this was Katara, he’d be teasing the hell out of her for it. But this _isn’t_ his sister, and damn is it bizarre that he has to remind himself of that.

He excuses himself back to the other room before he can think any further about it (or, you know, Azula decides to set him on fire). The desk is annoyingly still covered in useless junk, and a lesser man would probably be on the verge of giving up as the minutes dragged on. Not Sokka, though. No siree.

...Actually, can he get a rain check on that? Because it’s now been—he glances down at his invisible timepiece—approximately thirty fucking years, and he hasn’t found squat!

He sinks down onto his knees in the space once occupied by the desk chair with a groan. The wood creaks as his forehead droops against the table’s edge, gravity urging him further into its shadows. At this point, he might as well let just the Spirits drag him straight down onto the floor so they can have the laugh at his expense they so clearly desire.

Wait a second. Is that…? Could it actually be…?

Sokka reaches his hand forward as though in a daze. He half expects his fingers to sink right through the book affixed to the underside of the desk like some sort of desperation-induced mirage. But they don’t, and to say he’s legitimately flabbergated would be an understatement.

He quickly pries the book out of its hiding place with an almost giddy excitement. The cover is a plain, unmarked red, which totally checks out. He almost snaps the binding in his haste to open it and absorb the secrets undoubtedly hiding within, only to remember seconds later that the overhang of a desk _maybe_ doesn’t have the best reading light.

He _does not trip_ as he scrambles to his feet and back into the main room of the apartment. The entire kiving room situation is just as nasty as he remembers it being, so he switches courses to the attached kitchen. The table is similarly cluttered, but it’s free of mysterious stains, so Sokka determines it’s good enough.

And yes, it _is_ satisfying to swipe the countertop’s array of used plates and random papers onto the floor to clear out a less disgusting work surface.

The clatter of porcelain hitting the floor draws Azula into the room, who gives him one of her patented “are you stupid?” stares. Too bad Sokka’s too smug about his discovery to care. 

“Check this out,” he says, waving her over. “I found it hidden under Ukano’s desk.”

Azula approaches, casually slipping something into her stolen rucksack as she does. “What is it?”

Sokka shrugs. “Let’s find out.”

He makes a conscious effort to open the book more gently this time, though he immediately wants to throw that caution to the wind when he sees the propaganda splashed across the parchment. It’s the same “usurper” bullshit from the poster at the bar, but Spirits if it doesn’t make Sokka’s blood boil.

The twitch of Azula’s fingers as she reaches around him to jerkily flips the page tells him he isn’t the only one ready to commit a murder or two.

The next paper appears to have a logbook printed on it. The notes are meticulous, but written in some type of indecipherable shorthand.

“I’ve seen this before,” Azula says. “It’s a sort of code that nobles use in case their mail is intercepted.”

“Please tell me you know how to read it.”

The way Azula bites her lip is less than promising.

“We studied it a bit at the Academy,” she replies. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Sokka nods, anxiously wringing his wrists as he watches over her shoulder. She huffs when she notices his presence.

“Give me some space, would you? I can’t exactly work with you breathing down my neck.”

Great. Now Sokka is once again trapped with his nervous energy and zero outlets. He paces for as long as he thinks he can get away with, and then turns his attention to raiding the kitchen cabinets. He finds a container of hopefully-not-stale buns in one of the cupboards, and eagerly pops it open.

“What in Agni’s name are you doing?”

Sokka freezes, cheeks bulging around his mouthful of bread. He swallows thickly. “Eating?”

“Right now?”

“What?” he defends. “It’s an investigation, not a hunger strike. Brains need food to work!”

“Fine,” Azula acquiesces. “Give me some.”

Sokka gingerly places a roll in her outstretched hand, and waits until her attention is back on the notes before resuming his quest for food. He finds a bowl of slightly overripe moon peaches alongside a tin of tea leaves, which he takes out with a flourish.

“Hey!” he calls to Azula, shaking the container. “Want some tea?”

Azula stills, then smooths her expression over moments later so expertly that Sokka half suspects he imagined the lapse in composure in the first place. But the slight tremor in her jaw is the same one he saw back on the street when she’d nearly stumbled, and the momentary far-away gleam in her eyes is identical to the one Zuko’s sported far too many times.

“Come look at this,” she says in lieu of a response.

Sokka wonders, as he walks back to her side, if she truly heard his question in the first place.

“This symbol here means ‘spy’.” She points to a weird, squiggly box, then to a crude flame. “And this one is ‘firebender’.”

Huh. A list of all the cultists. Now _that_ would come in handy, because Sokka is sure as shit going to wreak havoc on each and every one of these motherfuckers after this.

“Anything else?”

Azula nods and flips the page. “I’m fairly certain these are all numbers. Maybe it’s some sort of code?”

The array of intersecting lines and random shapes don’t look like any numbers Sokka’s ever seen, but he’s willing to take Azula’s word for it. They do appear to be arranged in a series of patterns—ones that Sokka, strangely, recognizes.

“They’re coordinates.”

Azula’s eyes widen. “You don’t think…?”

Sokka hears the unspoken question: could one of these really lead to Zuko?

“I don’t know,” he replies slowly. “But there’s only one way to—“

In a massive blow to Sokka’s ego, he doesn’t get to finish his super suave, cryptic line. No, instead he freezes, his entire body tensing as his ears prick at the sound of distant footsteps and the jangling of keys.

There’s someone at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to cliff yall lol
> 
> fun fact, members of u.s. congress are actually required to have residences in both d.c. and the state they represent


	34. subterfuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few things happen in rapid succession, none of which Sokka is particularly proud of.
> 
> or: sleuthing with a side of “oh fuck we’re gonna die”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for minor violence, homophobia, description of injuries, and smoking
> 
> buckle up

A few things happen in rapid succession, none of which Sokka is particularly proud of. And he’ll tell you all about them—seriously, Ambassador’s Honor—but first just take a moment, if you would, and remember that he is a warrior. A badass warrior with killer instincts for days and even kill-ier good looks who took down the Fire Lord and his crazy army like it was nothing. _Nothing!_

So what’s a guy—a surviving, god-amongst-men strategic guy—supposed to do in response to a sudden threat other than chuck a boomerang at it?

Boomerang has saved Sokka’s butt more times than he can count, not to mention the lives of all of his friends who constantly underplay the value of skillful weapon-throwing. (They should be thanking him. _Thanking him!)_ It’s his Thing! Yeah, he’s the Sword Master, and the Plan Master—but he’s also still Boomerang Master, first and foremost! Now and forever, baby!

Where was he going with all this? Not that fanfare ever needs a reason, but…

Oh, right: it’s totally not his (or Boomerang’s) fault that he may or may not have instinctively chucked his weapon at an innocent old lady in the doorway. He still cringes when the metal makes a sickening _ping_ as it hits her right between her wide, unsuspecting eyes, and she drops to the ground like a pile of weird, wrinkly rocks.

Sokka thinks, for a precious moment, that maybe he can dart out and drag the evidence away before anyone notices. (And by “drag the evidence away” he means “lovingly carry the poor woman to safety and give her rudimentary medical care,” obviously.) But then Azula whacks him in the arm so aggressively that it disrupts his perfect catching angle, and the boomerang flies past his outstretched fingertips straight into the drywall.

Or it would have, if not for Sokka’s cosmically shitty luck necessitating that structurally unsound shelves of fancy, decorative teacups adorn the space behind him.

He jolts when the first piece of porcelain hits the ground, cursing and banging his already injured leg on the edge of the table in the process, and it really all just goes downhill from there.

There’s a shuffling in the hallway and the sound of another door creaking open. He catches the tail end of a conversation between what he assumes are two more offensively rich tenants.

“—what all the clutter is about!”

“Hurry up, dear!”

Shoes slap against the stairs—not heels, because Yue forbid a woman takes control of a situation—and soon, a panting, red-faced man stands beside the prone body of Sokka’s unfortunate victim.

“Agni above, it’s the laundress!”

The man looks up at the open doorway, then, and Sokka swears their eyes lock in slow motion.

“What is it?” the noblewoman calls from below.

“Kyoshi Warriors!” he shouts back.

“Why are there Kyoshi Warriors here?”

There’s a pause. Sokka holds his breath and does his best not to look suspicious. (The unhinged strength with which Azula is clenching his arm in time with the _still falling_ teacups every so often doesn’t exactly help his case.)

“You know,” the man replies slowly, “I’m not quite sure.”

He takes a step over the laundress’ unconscious form into the threshold of the apartment.

“You better explain yourselves before I call the authorities!”

Sokka swallows.

“So,” he whispers to Azula out of the side of his mouth. “We should go, right?”

He sees her nod from the corner of his eye.

“Right,” he says loudly, carefully rising to his feet. “I think this has all been a big misunderstanding. No need to come any closer or, uh, call any police. We’ll just be taking our Kyoshi business, um, elsewhere.”

The man takes another suspicious step forward.

“Hey!” Sokka squeaks. “I just said not to come any closer!”

“This is stupid,” Azula cuts in. “Let’s _go.”_

She yanks him back towards Mai’s room before he can protest, then slams the door behind them.

“Here,” she says, quickly pushing open a side door to reveal a small balcony. “This way.”

Sokka shoots a glance towards the apartment’s entrance, where he can hear the annoyingly concerned neighbor screaming for security, before following her into the open air.

The sudden sunlight burns, and maneuvering his way down the side of the building while simultaneously shielding his eyes is quite a task. He manages to reach the ground without making too much of an ass out of himself, and Azula’s grip on his wrist keeps him on his feet as they sprint away from the inadvertent scene of the crime.

He is, admittedly, fairly out of breath by the time Azula deems them to be at a safe distance, and his heart is hammering in his ears.

“Tui and La,” he rasps out. “That was insane.”

Azula huffs and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I suppose.”

“At least we got what we came for, right?”

Azula brandishes the logbook with a smirk.

“Great,” Sokka says, readjusting his scabbard with a sigh.

“Oh, and you dropped this.”

She slaps something metal into his hand, and Sokka’s jaw drops.

“Boomerang!” he cries.

He plants a fat kiss on it and cradles it close to his face. “Thank you!”

“Do try not to brain any more old ladies with it, would you?”

“I can’t help that my aim is so good. It’s called a boomer _ang,_ not a boomer _ain’t.”_

Azula rolls her eyes and turns away.

“Come on!” Sokka groans. “It’s like you Fire Nation people are allergic to humor!”

Sokka has actually put an embarrassing amount of thought into this theory, because the number of blank, uncomprehending stares he’s received from Zuko in response to his hilarity is astounding.

(He’d tried the boomerang joke on his boyfriend before, too, to which he’d gotten a quizzical reply of _“Aang? Like the Avatar?”_ Spirits, Zuko’s lucky he’s cute.)

“Oh, speaking of the Fire Nation—do you know where we can get a map?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know.” Sokka fumbles to grab the logbook from his bag and opens it to the page of coordinates. “So we can look for these.”

Azula purses her lips. “I recall there being a library around here once.”

Sokka shudders as his subconscious nightmare of a large, terrifying owl makes itself known.

“Great,” he ekes out. “Lead the way.”

Wan Shi Tong, Sokka soon learns, has _nothing_ on feisty old librarians when they catch you trying to steal an atlas.

* * *

The sun is high in the sky by the time they find a secluded enough area to spread out their supplies. Sokka is marking points on one of the various maps and mumbling angrily to himself. It’s going to give Azula a stress ulcer.

“Have you found anything?” she asks, picking at a stray spot of dried paint on her wrist.

“Sort of,” Sokka replies. “Most of these coordinates are either in the Earth Kingdom or lower on the archipelago, and I figure their central evil lair is somewhere near Caldera.”

“And the others are what, splinter groups?”

Sokka shrugs. “Beats me. I’m gonna have a hell of a time tracking them all down, though.”

“They’ll pay for what they’ve done,” Azula agrees. “Every last one of them.”

“Such violence,” another voice cuts in.

Azula’s head snaps up, and she immediately slides into a defensive stance. “Who said that?”

“You are better than this, Azula.”

She spins in a quick circle, eyes roving wildly. “Who’s there?”

The voice, disparaging and pitying and achingly familiar, does not reply.

Azula shakes her head to dispel the last echoes from her mind. It must have just been the wind.

She steps closer to Sokka for some sort of distraction, hating the way her vision and body seem to subtly zap in and out of focus. _Get a grip,_ she orders herself.

Thankfully, Sokka appears not to have overheard her momentary lapse of composure, because he beckons her closer without hesitation. He points to the most detailed of the array of maps, this one specifically of the capital. On it, he’s circled three distinct points.

“I think these are our best bets for finding Zuko. And if he’s not there, I guess we’ll check the rest of the ones in the Fire Nation.”

“No,” Azula says, shaking her head. “He _will_ be there.”

She hopes he doesn’t make her say the rest of what her statement implies, seeing as the thought itself is enough to bring bile to her throat.

 _(He_ will _be there, because we may not find him in time if he isn’t.)_

* * *

The first location is a bust. It’s a shed, hardly large enough for even a baby komodo rhino, tucked in the brush on the city’s outskirts. Sokka decides he simply _must_ look inside anyways.

“He’s not in there,” she says, hands on her hips.

“I know!” His voice is muffled, and frankly Azula would prefer not to have heard it at all. (Spirits, what a tragedy; the peasant has even managed to ruin well-deserved compliments for her.) “I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any— _holy shit!”_

Azula smirks and comes closer, hoping to find a viper bat (or something equally as disgusting) unleashing some sort of torment upon her companion. Instead, she catches a glimpse of a corpse.

“Oh, Agni,” she groans, bringing a hand up to pinch her nose against the sudden stench of decay. “Get out of there!”

She hears Sokka shuffling around almost frantically, and she summons a small flame to her free hand like some sort of lure. It somehow backfires spectacularly, because Sokka goes still.

“Fuck,” he says quietly. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“That’s- that’s Su. I know- I mean, I _knew_ her.”

Azula shifts uncomfortably, unsure of what to say.

“She worked at the palace,” Sokka explains in the silence. “We got a letter saying she was leaving to take care of her sick girlfriend, but...Spirits, that was _months_ ago.”

Sokka steps back outside, his face ashen and sweaty. “You don’t think she’s been here this entire time, do you?”

Azula swallows thickly. She thinks they both know the answer to that one.

“I’m going to kill those bastards,” he hisses, angrily slamming his open palm against the doorframe.

The outburst seems to sap his energy; the next time he speaks, it’s much more hesitantly. “We’ll come back for her, right? We won’t just leave her again.”

Azula can only nod.

“Okay,” Sokka says. “Okay.”

He gently closes the door to the shed behind him and slides the map back out of his bag. He taps the next nearest marking, then points in the direction they need to head. She doesn’t interrupt as he whispers a short blessing to the Spirits—a Water Tribe one, she presumes—a few paces ahead of her.

Silently, she sends a prayer up to Agni as well.

* * *

The coordinates lead them to a building a few blocks back towards Caldera proper. While it could fit the profile size-wise, Azula doubts even Ukano would be idiotic enough to stage his underground meetings this close to civilization.

Azula won’t call herself desperate, but she supposes she’s more than willing to risk encountering another deposed victim on the off chance her brother _is_ being held there. Fortunately, the stink of rotting flesh doesn’t assault her nostrils again; though, admittedly, the reek of dirty laundry and body odor isn’t much better.

Sokka’s exaggerated noise of disappointment at Zuko’s glaring absence alerts two burly men, who’d been chatting idly about economics near a row of bunk beds. From the speed with which they draw their weapons, she infers they aren’t too keen on being interrupted.

Sokka is on them in a flash, whirling and striking with his swords at a frenzied speed. The others are no match, and they’re soon slumped unconscious at Sokka’s feet. He kicks their weapons away with a huff before resheathing his own.

“Oh, good,” Azula says sarcastically. “Now we can ask them where Zuzu is.”

Sokka glances between her and the two fallen goons almost frantically before letting his head fall into his hands. “Fuck, I didn’t even think about that!”

“It’s fine.” _(Is it?)_ “If I had to hear one more word about trade from them, I would have done it myself.”

The words feel strange coming from her mouth, but something inside her softens at the almost grateful look Sokka shoots at her.

“Yeah,” he replies, slowly slipping back into his usual confidence. “They didn’t even know what a tariff was!”

Azula forces a chuckle. It comes out as more of a wheeze.

“Anyways,” Sokka continues. “The New Ozai weirdos must be living here.”

“What gave it away?” Azula asks dryly. “Was it the unwashed loincloths?”

Sokka’s features scrunch in disgust. “Ew!”

“Let’s get out of here. This much testosterone is bad for my skin.”

She smirks as Sokka scrambles to follow her.

“Hey, wait! You should take this.”

Something red and wooden (and suspiciously moist) is deposited in her hand.

“It’s a Dragon Emperor mask,” he says, as though she doesn’t already know.

“I’m aware,” she replies.

She feels the phantom breeze of seaside air on her skin, the soft touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder beneath the Ember Island sun.

“It would be good to cover your face. Not that I didn’t do a fantastic job with the Kyoshi paint, but…”

Azula sighs and turns back to the mask, which grins eerily up at her. She then wipes off the rest of her makeup and slips it on.

“Well?”

Her voice echoes behind the wood, but she can clearly see the thumbs-up Sokka gives her. He’s slipped the Blue Spirit mask back on. It’s horribly conspicuous.

This, surely, is the only reason she nudges him to change into the other, matching red mask. (It has nothing to do with the bittersweet memories of playing pretend with her brother, racing up and down the beach in their childish replicas of blue and red; the same colors that their flames would take on when they clashed, always, _always_ fighting. No, it has nothing to do with that whatsoever.)

“I will when we get there,” Sokka assures. “It’s just... _his,_ you know?”

The Dragon Emperor’s smile hides the downturn of Azula’s lips; because while she’s left plenty of her own marks on her brother, all he’s given her is a kindness that she doesn’t think she’ll ever repay. She almost wishes he’d injured her further in their Agni Kai, done anything other than simply twist the metaphorical dagger lodged in her heart.

Or perhaps she does have a part of him, nestled deep within the fire in her core. That anger, that protectiveness; that devotion she once thought branded him as weak. All of it burns fiercely inside her.

If this is how she must find the redemption he still managed to see behind all of her slowly crumbling walls, so be it. She’s already clawed her way up from the ashes once before; how hard can it be to do it again?

* * *

They reach the final destination by sunset. The map has been burning a hole in Sokka’s pocket for hours, and he’s only stopped checking it every five seconds at Azula’s threat of setting it on fire. They’re past the official borders of Caldera, now, somewhere between the volcano’s edge and a narrow strait.

“Is it getting hotter out here? I think it’s getting hotter.”

The sweat beading on his forehead and slowly eroding at his facepaint seizes the opportunity to slide down his cheek all disgusting and oozy-like, as if to emphasize his extreme discomfort.

“It’s the Fire Nation,” Azula replies flatly. “Take off that ridiculous mask if you’re so warm.”

Okay, Sokka _may_ have been considering doing that, but now he definitely can’t, because that would mean giving Azula the satisfaction of being right, and that’s _literally_ against the older sibling code! That doesn’t mean he can’t be jealous of the Dragon Emperor mask clipped to Azula’s waist rather than suffocating her, though.

“You’re going to have to switch to the other one soon, anyways.”

“Fine,” Sokka groans, tugging his face free. “If you insist.”

Ah, sweet, refreshing air; how he’s missed you!

He tries to subtly wipe away the sweat drying on his face at varying speeds, but he’s pretty sure he only manages to further smudge his makeup. Sorry, Suki.

They soon reach what appears to be a group of abandoned ostrich-horses tied to a horizontal wooden stake. It’s both a promising and terrifying sign.

“Where is everyone?”

He makes it a few steps closer to investigate when Azula stops him with a tug on his wrist.

“Wait,” she says, pulling him flush against the mountainside at their backs. “Someone’s coming.”

Sokka blinks and looks back and forth. “Where?”

“I never thought I’d meet someone quite as dull as my brother,” she mutters, taking Sokka’s hand before he can protest and pressing his palm into the stone behind them. “Here. Feel the wall.”

She’s right; the earth is shaking, a rumbling slowly getting closer until a hidden doorway detaches itself from the cliffside.

“It’s a cave,” Sokka whispers.

“What an astute observation.”

He rolls his eyes at Azula’s snark, opting to be the bigger person and slip on his stolen (well, _other_ stolen) mask. It smells like stale meat, and it kind of makes him want to die. He tries not to breathe out of his nose as he stows the Blue Spirit mask back in his bag.

Azula already has her mask on when he looks back up, and she nervously tugs him towards the entrance. Well, _she’d_ never call it nervously, but her hand is hot and clammy around his wrist, so you do the math.

There’s a man leaning against the cliffside near the door smoking a cigarette. He must’ve been the one they’d seen exiting.

Sokka detangles himself from Azula’s grasp with a wave.

“Hello there, fellow patriot,” he greets, making sure to deepen his voice.

He’s pretty sure he catches Azula’s fists smoking at her sides.

The man nods at him. Though he’s mostly covered by the shadow of his mask, pushed back to lay over his greasy hair so he can blow the world’s lamest smoke rings, his beaklike nose and uneven mustache are hard to miss. Sokka memorizes his features and tries to imagine them busted in by his knuckles.

“You’re late.”

It takes a second for Sokka to realize he’s being spoken to, and by then Azula has already taken to jabbing him with her elbow.

“Uh, yes. We got...caught up at the store. Yeah, the store! They had a sale on Ozai portraits.”

The man stares at him for a moment, and Sokka tenses, readying himself to grab his swords. This isn’t exactly how he planned for this to go, but sometimes you’ve just gotta improvise! You know, when life gives you blueberry-lemons, and all that jazz. (The blueberry-lemons in this case being suspicious, kidnapping fascists, of course.)

“No fooling? You’ll have to show me where, later.”

Sokka blinks. Did that actually work? And, wait—do these people seriously hang up photos of the Loser Lord in their homes? What the hell?

“Oh, yeah. For sure.”

“You guys can head on in if you want. You’re lucky: Master Ukano said the meeting won’t be starting for a little while longer.”

Sokka nods. “Thanks, buddy. We’ll, um, see you inside?”

He hears Azula curse under her breath before she all but shoves him inside.

“Spirits,” Sokka groans when they’re far enough down the passageway to be out of earshot. “What a _douche.”_

Azula doesn’t grace him with an answer, and Sokka is willing to bet it’s because she’s holding back a comment about how she would have handled the situation oh so much better.

The tunnel spits them out into a larger cavern, this one crawling with cultists. There’s a makeshift stage at the far end of the room framed on either end by large, red Fire Nation flags. Another burgundy tapestry hangs in the middle, nearly spanning the entirety of the platform’s width; and on it, embellished in bright swaths of thread, is Ozai’s smug, predatory face. His narrowed eyes are the same molten gold as his crown, and Sokka swears he’s staring right at him, an eagle-hawk assessing its prey.

Sokka has never felt quite so small.

He flinches when the sconces on the stage flare suddenly, the torches on the other walls simultaneously dimming. A murmur goes through the crowd, and there’s a brief rumble as everyone orients themselves to face the front. He sees a fair number of them slide their masks off, probably to better see whatever shitshow is about to unfold because the whole eye-slit thing is _not_ the move. Unfortunately, even in the shadows of the crowd’s edge, his skin stands out far too starkly.

A quick glance to his side shows Azula to be among those living and breathing a free, unobstructed life. Damn her and her pale, Fire Nation-ness.

At least the mask does a fairly good job of covering his panic when the cavern wall grumbles and slides to reveal a makeshift passageway.

“Earthbenders,” Azula whispers.

Sokka nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off of the tunnel—or the group of figures emerging from it, their identities hidden behind the wooden grin of the Dragon Emperor. The first two swing their arms in mechanical motions, lowering and lifting their elbows in a tight formation as the rocks shift to their will. Behind them, a man so large that his mask’s chin barely reaches past his lips drags something at his feet.

The benders stop at the edge of the stage to summon a stone ramp, waiting on either side as their compatriot climbs into the spotlight.

“Fellow countrymen,” he says, voice deep and booming. “I, Master Ukano, bring to you tonight a traitor.”

He gives a swift bow as he steps backwards over what Sokka can now make out is a body, tied and prone on the ground.

“On behalf of the New Ozai Society,” he continues, bending down as the crowd cheers, “I present to you the ruiner of our great nation.”

He yanks his arm up on the last word, eliciting a sharp cry wholly at odds with the celebratory jeers echoing in the room. Sokka is just about ready to scream, too. (Or fight or attack or maim or _kill_.)

Because there, bruised and bound, held by nothing but a rough fist in the same hair that Sokka’s spent many a long night running his fingers through, is Zuko.

His head lists to the side, his right eye almost as slitted as the left. Splotches of black and blue peek out from the hem of his torn robes, and Sokka shudders to think of the extent of the damage hidden underneath.

“This sinner has stolen the crown from the rightful Fire Lord. He tarnishes it with his perversions. He is a disgrace to Agni’s will, and he will burn for his heresy.”

Ukano’s followers rally at this, hissing and jeering out a litany of curses and slurs vile enough to make Sokka’s skin crawl. And when he realizes the vitriol stems from a knowledge of his and Zuko’s relationship, he wants to claw it off entirely.

He glances to his side at Azula, a cold fury suddenly brewing within him at her blank expression. It isn’t blank, though; it’s a forced neutrality betrayed by the tension in her jaw, the clenched set of her teeth. (It’s the look of a girl trained to hide her emotions bursting at the seams.)

The worst part is that Azula doesn’t seem surprised, and Spirits if that doesn’t make Sokka feel like a massive fucking fool. He’d silently begrudged Zuko’s secrecy for so long, festering with untamped fears that maybe his boyfriend’s shame was not of Sokka’s gender, but of Sokka himself. He’d harbored that embarrassment, that _inadequacy,_ so deep down that he, too, could barely even see it. Katara would label the denial as self-preservation or something; she was always smarter than him like that. And Sokka? Sokka’s just a man—just a stupid, lovesick asshole—thousands of miles from his home, staring at the broken, bloodied remnants of the object of his affections.

Zuko’s held Sokka’s heart in his hands since they were teenagers, kids weighed down by responsibilities they never should’ve held and the crushing knowledge that the fate of the world rested on their small, achy shoulders. And sure, a few years of peace is hardly long enough to make a dent in a century’s worth of destruction. It is hardly enough to repair a lifetime of trauma that hangs over all of their heads—especially ones being dragged down by a crown of flames—and Sokka wants to kick himself for thinking otherwise.

The suffocating guilt cinches ever tighter when Ukano speaks again.

“Tomorrow,” he says, giving another sharp tug to Zuko’s hair, “we will descend on the capital and demand Lord Ozai’s release with the traitor as leverage.”

Sokka inhales sharply. _So that was their master plan._

“He will die at the Fire Lord’s feet. _Honorless.”_

He spits the last word out, and Sokka feels it pierce straight through his chest. It’s a noose, a vice, only tightening as Ukano lets out a sudden snarl and shoves Zuko’s head to the ground. He lands with a knee on Zuko’s back in the process, forcing the right side of his face into the dirt. The palm of his hand digs into the burnt remnants of Zuko’s cheekbone, and his fingers claw at the ridge where scar meets unmarred flesh beneath his nose.

Sokka’s vision is blurry, so much so that he can barely process the slight shudders running through his boyfriend’s body as he jerks in Ukano’s hold. Can barely comprehend the swaths of reddened injuries across Zuko’s back, old and new, in stark contrast against the pale skin his singed shirt doesn’t cover.

He is a jumbled mess, a collection of scattered thoughts and nauseating, unadulterated fear.

 _I’m sorry,_ his brain shrieks uselessly. _This is all my fault._

The statements echo in his mind in a swirl of self-hatred and sheer desperation.

_I’m sorry. This is all my fault._

_I swear I won't let them hurt you anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes im aware this goes from buddy cop to angst in .2 seconds what about it


	35. rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka hasn’t stopped shaking since Zuko’s limp body was dragged off the stage. He’s a livewire, a ticking time bomb of his own creation. The shudders running up and down his spine are never-ending, and each beat of his pounding heart echoes with the sickening crack of Zuko’s skull against the ground.
> 
> or: the most bittersweet of rescues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is kinda late, i was busy writing this [one-shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587044) for the series (which i would love if yall checked out)
> 
> cw for descriptions of injuries, drugging, & referenced abuse

Zuko probably should have known better than to mouth off to Ukano again, but his brain is slightly less soupy and he has enough wits to know that he is fucking pissed.

So when he hears Ukano’s order for his execution at Father’s feet, his overwhelming rage and simultaneous apathy blur together into sheer spite. He thinks he spits out something akin to “bite me,” but with all the ringing in his functional ear he can’t really tell.

His surroundings dim as his head is suddenly slammed downwards, and he slips graciously into the cocoon of numbness that the final scraps of his psyche offers for comfort. There is a pressure on his back—perhaps a vengeful fist, or an immovable weight, or one of those fire whips Father was once so fond of—but it’s okay, it can’t touch him. He is elsewhere. He is free. He is

(burning smoldering shaking decomposing clawing at his skin _stop make it stop_ groveling begging melting split open)

outside of himself, where he much prefers to linger. Maybe he can extend this disconnect; he can’t quite remember what caused such a pounding in his heart, such rage and vitriol, but what could be worth invoking more misery on himself? Hasn’t he suffered enough? Bled enough? Given enough? Spirits, how much of him is even left?

He tastes something sickly sweet on his tongue. Like flowers, or maybe blood. Magma? Lava? Ash?

He doesn’t have the strength to spit it out or the control to relish in the flavor long enough to identify it.

His surroundings shift, as they constantly seem wont to do. A constant in and out, tides overturning his center of gravity like the rough waves that crashed against the side of his ship. But he has no crew, nor any legend to chase after; he has no need to grow sea legs and root himself to this unstable, hostile ground.

Seconds bleed into hours bleed into minutes bleed into centuries. He is broken down and built up to the rhythm of his stuttering heart.

There’s someone looming over him, now. It’s a shadow, much in the way that everything seems to be a shadow at this point. Reality, memories, hallucination—all lost in swaths of darkness. But the sensation of eyes boring into his body, of laying helplessly at someone else’s feet, cuts far deeper into his psyche than his mind’s other unpleasant conjurings.

Yet the shadow-person’s posture is not that of one of Zuko’s many demons, each more determined to squash him into nothingness than the last. No, this person—creature? entity?—is subdued. It hunches in on itself, lost and unsure. He aches to soothe it, whatever it is. To reassure it that it is not alone in its fear and suffering.

It must sense this connection, somehow—this bond of fear and pain and weakness—for it steps closer. The smoke obscuring it clears for a moment, long enough for Zuko to shakily make out a dark topknot and glowing, golden eyes.

“Lu Ten?” he rasps.

Lu Ten tilts his head at him in a familiar sort of confusion. It’s the expression he wears each time Zuko gasps a little too loudly at a compliment or accidentally bares too much of his skin in training, and Zuko hates it, he _hates_ it!

(Why is part of him inexplicably desperate for a chance to see that look on his cousin’s face one more time?)

He thinks Lu Ten tries to speak to him, but the words are impossible to parse out. He nearly risks the scolding sure to follow to ask him to repeat himself.

When he blinks next, Lu Ten is gone. The absence the realization sends clawing its way through his heart is not a foreign one, and a smarter man wouldn’t instinctively try to hold onto the grief quite so strongly.

But Zuko has never been smart, or strong, or brave, or any of the other adjectives perpetually associated with his gifted younger sister. (It might be treason, but Zuko thinks perhaps Father was wrong when he said he was lucky to be born at all.)

* * *

Sokka hasn’t stopped shaking since Zuko’s limp body was dragged off the stage. He’s a livewire, a ticking time bomb of his own creation. The shudders running up and down his spine are never-ending, and each beat of his pounding heart echoes with the sickening crack of Zuko’s skull against the ground.

He barely registers Azula’s vice-like grip on his shoulder, numb in every sense of the word.

“We need to find where they took him,” she hisses.

Sokka thinks he nods, but his mind is too fuzzy to really tell. All he sees is the smatterings of blood coagulating in the space Zuko once inhabited, and it’s a tunnel vision of the worst sort.

(He never imagined that not seeing Zuko in pain would feel quite so much like dying; but not seeing Zuko in pain means not seeing him at all, and that’s somehow infinitely worse.)

He lets Azula pull him through the crowd in a daze. Strange, how his body moves of its own volition. Joints and muscles and tendons and bones all operate in unison, an automatic apparatus that the mechanist in Sokka morbidly wishes to take apart; because how can he retain this mobility while being simultaneously so detached?

“This way,” Azula whispers.

Sokka manages not to stumble too badly as they head in the direction Zuko disappeared. A part of him registers that this is a hopeless endeavor; because while Azula may be a terrifyingly powerful bender, she can’t exactly move solid earth. The other part simply lacks the emotional strength required to care.

Azula must sense his hesitation, if the slight tightening of her grip is any indication. “There’s a path between the rocks up ahead. We should be able to slip through.”

That seems incredibly unlikely, considering all the infuriatingly complex planning that clearly went into the New Ozai Society’s sadistic endeavor.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Of course I’m sure,” Azula retorts. “Why, would you like me to light a fire to find out?”

Sokka’s shoulders slump. He realizes, now, that he frankly lacks the will to care. What does it even matter if he gets caught at this point?

“Keep moving,” Azula snaps, and huh, when did his feet even stop? “You can throw yourself a pity party later.”

“Guess you don’t want an invitation.” It’s a weak comeback, wholly undeserving of the quiet snort Azula lets out. (Maybe he isn’t the only one so disastrously shaken up.)

In the plot twist to end all plot twists, Azula’s right: there _is_ a gap in the wall. (Zuko’s comments about his sister outdoing him may actually have some merit, because even his complete about-face in volunteering to train Aang wasn’t quite this shocking.)

The feeling of bizarre luck is quick to fade once they creep their way through the narrow passageway.

“Zuko?” Sokka whispers, voice thread-bare.

Azula is similarly frozen in place, golden eyes wide as she takes in the nauseating state her brother is in. Their brief glimpse of him beneath the bright lights of the stage did little justice to the utter wreckage done to Zuko’s body. Here, framed by unforgiving metal bars, Zuko looks...well, he looks _dead._ His hair, messy and crownless, fans limply across his face. He’s shivering where he lays curled on his left side, his eyes scrunched tight. The whole room reeks of blood and sweat, mildew and misery creeping in tendrils up the earthen wall at Zuko’s back.

There are a few scorch marks on the ground, but the cell is otherwise unmarked. Similarly, the iron rods stretching from the floor to the ceiling on the prison’s three other sides bear no signs of a struggle. Why hadn’t Zuko fought? What had they done to him?

“Sokka,” Azula says quietly, raising a shaky finger. “Look.”

He follows her gaze to the cell’s door, which hangs ever-so-slightly ajar.

The logical part of him knows he should be suspicious. After all, what sane person wouldn’t lock up their high-profile prisoner? But there is no room for such reasoning in his scattered brain right now, because Zuko is here and bound and still and Sokka’s going to implode if he can’t pull him into his arms and take the hurt away right this instant.

The door opens with a damning creak, and Sokka momentarily freezes. His hands slide instinctively towards his scabbard, but after a few terse moments it’s clear no one is coming. _Probably too busy celebrating,_ he thinks bitterly.

Zuko must have heard the noise, though, because he slowly blinks his eyes open. He seems lost, sluggish. Just what did they do to him? It takes him a minute to even register Sokka’s presence, and his breath hitches when he does. He attempts to shift backwards towards the far wall, tugging futilely at the binds on his wrists.

He looks scared. No, he looks _terrified,_ and Sokka doesn’t understand, not at all.

Azula snaps her fingers to get his attention from where she stands guarding the doorway. “Take off the mask, dum-dum.”

Zuko doesn’t seem to register that she's spoken, too busy continuing his struggle to scoot away and undoubtedly aggravate all his injuries. And Sokka? Sokka’s preoccupied wondering why he’s such a fucking idiot.

He watches Zuko’s eyes track the movement as he slowly removes his mask, setting it on the ground beside him. He waits to see the relief in his boyfriend’s expression.

It doesn’t come.

“S-stay back,” he stammers.

It’s the same fear as before, but now, Sokka is weighed down by the sickening truth that it’s well and truly directed at him.

He swallows down the nauseating guilt to crouch down at Zuko’s side.

“Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay. We’re gonna get you out of here.”

“No,” Zuko groans, shaking his head almost violently. “No, what did you _do_ to me?”

He can tell Zuko means it to be threatening, but his entire body is trembling and Sokka just wants to hold him and never let go.

“It’s just me,” he says, raising his hands in a gesture of innocence that instead has Zuko flinching further back.

He curses under his breath; _Spirits_ , he’s dumb.

“It’s just me,” he repeats, softer this time. “It’s just Sokka.”

Zuko looks ready to protest, to argue, to spit fire—but instead, he just lets his chin droop down to touch his chest and sighs. Sokka can sense his coherency slipping, and he wonders if he’d rather be burned than witness this descent.

“‘re you here t’ p’nish me?” His words are quiet and growing slurred, and yeah, Sokka would _definitely_ prefer becoming a human torch to this.

“Of course—“ Sokka swallows as his voice cracks. “Of course not.”

Zuko doesn’t reply, his gaze roaming listlessly across the floor.

Sokka turns to Azula, who’s hovering in the corner. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Step aside, Mr. Detective,” she says, kneeling down on Zuko’s other side; for some reason, Sokka finds her (wholly uncalled for) mockery comforting.

Zuko doesn’t so much as twitch when Azula’s hand touches his face, splaying her fingers in an attempt to force his eye open wider.

His _left_ eye.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sokka hisses.

Azula pauses to glare at him, her palm still pressed against Zuko’s scar. “Excuse me?”

Sokka quickly pries her hand off of Zuko, who’s only now beginning to recognize the pressure on his frayed nerve endings.

(He told Sokka, once, that he enjoyed the numbness that a lack of sobriety wrought, because at least then he didn’t have to feel the phantom aches; and considering his current state of confusion, Sokka would hazard a guess that he was far from sober.)

“It’s okay,” he soothes, ignoring Azula as he slowly rests his fingers above Zuko’s other eye.

He feels Zuko weakly press his head against Sokka’s palm, as though trying to look for the source of the contact. His skin is clammy and radiating a concerning amount of heat, even for a firebender. He shivers as Sokka gently peels back his eyelid, and it only takes a glance to register the fact that his right pupil is blown to hell, gold nearly swallowed entirely by blackness.

“He’s been drugged,” Azula confirms, glancing away as Sokka releases Zuko’s face and brushes back his tangled hair. “And I had that handled, you know.”

Sokka shakes his head, the motion (predictably) sending Azula into a tizzy.

“How _dare_ you insinuate—“

“He’s blind in that eye,” Sokka snaps, because for La’s sake, he does _not_ have the patience for this. “You can thank your dad for that.”

He’s half convinced she’ll go back on their truce, what with the truly murderous glare she’s pinning him with, but she just grits her teeth.

“Whatever,” she mutters, tucking a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. “We should get going.”

Sokka nods, moving to loop one of Zuko’s arms over his shoulder before remembering they’re bound.

“Uh,” he says, looking between Azula and Zuko’s wrists. “What should we do about…?”

“Let me see,” Azula orders, pushing Sokka to the side, none too gently.

He rolls his eyes as he leans over to watch her inspect the bindings, which are coated in a sickening combination of blood and soot. The skin beneath the thick twine is raw and red, some patches so blistered they’re barely recognizable as flesh.

“He burned himself,” Sokka whispers. “Why would he—“

“In case you weren’t aware,” Azula interrupts, slowly turning Zuko’s forearms from side to side, “my brother doesn’t often _think_ before he _acts._ ”

She lifts her right hand up a few inches before summoning a small blue flame to her fingertip; Sokka still can’t stop his instinctive shudder at the sight of it.

“But unlike Zuzu,” she continues, lowering the fire so that it catches on the rope, _“I_ don’t try to bend while drugged out of my mind.”

The flame slowly spreads across the bindings, a tightly controlled ring of heat that, despite the rush of anxiety in his chest, Sokka has to admit is awe-inspiring.

It’s also enough for Zuko—who, until now, has kept his glassy eyes trained just to the left of Sokka’s face—to notice her presence in the room.

“Mom?”

To her credit, Azula’s flames only flare for a second before she immediately extinguishes them, fists clenching at her sides. He can see her begin to tremble, her jaw tightening and loosening repeatedly.

“I think that’s enough for now, Brother,” she says, voice wavering (though with anger or grief, Sokka doesn’t know). “Time for the peasant to take you home.”

She turns away, and Sokka undoes what remains of Zuko’s bindings in silence. The rope is still a bit hot, and another minute of fire would definitely make his life easier, but Sokka makes do. (It’s better, after all, than attempting to converse with the ticking time bomb a few feet away.)

He blows on his hands after the rope is discarded, shaking out the heat stinging his palms. The pain would be worse, he’s sure, if he wasn’t so full of adrenaline that he’s practically vibrating out of his skin. Then, looping one arm around his shoulders, he pulls Zuko up to stand.

“Fuck,” he grunts, attempting to shift Zuko’s deceptively heavy frame. “A little help here?”

He meant the jab as a hint for Zuko to use his legs instead of letting them hang like limp noodles, so he’s a bit thrown when the weight lessens not on Zuko’s part, but on his sister’s.

“Come on,” she says, somehow barely even breaking a sweat as she turns them towards the mouth of the tunnel. “We need to leave.”

Sokka doesn’t thank her—he’s pretty sure she’ll singe the hair right off his head if he does—but he hopes she can see the gratitude in his gaze as they begin to hobble forward.

They cover a decent amount of ground before their jailbreak is discovered.

“Get back to Caldera,” Azula says, unloading Zuko from her shoulder so that he rests fully on Sokka’s back. She drops her bag beside him before straightening up. “I’ll deal with them.”

Sokka can only nod as he starts to trudge forward again, the proverbial (and literal) light at the end of the tunnel just out of reach. The walls echo horribly, and he can easily hear the chaos as Azula wreaks havoc on the bastards.

When the cave falls silent, Sokka feels a moment of panic before remembering that this is _Azula_ —and, sans against the force of nature that is Katara, he’s _never_ seen her lose a fight.

“Enough!” she shouts, voice practically deafening in the otherwise quiet air.

Sokka pauses to glance back over his shoulder, because hey, he’s earned the right to at least a _little_ burning-enemy-corpse satisfaction.

But when he turns around, there are no flames to be seen. And while the cult assholes are on the ground, they are very much _not dead._

“What the fuck?” he breathes, knees threatening to give out under the weight of Zuko’s body and the utter, stinging betrayal of Azula’s grin as the fascist fan club bows to her.

“Princess Azula,” one man stammers from the floor. “We did not know you had returned!”

“Your Majesty!” cries another. “Please, help us capture the escaped traitor so we can free Fire Lord Ozai and restore him to his throne!”

Sokka tenses; he knows he should flee, but his legs are numb, and even if they weren’t, there’s no way he can outrun anyone like this—just as there’s no way he’s leaving Zuko behind.

“Forget about Zuko.”

He jolts at Azula’s order, and for a second, despite the distance, he swears he sees something other than cruelty in her eyes.

“You don’t need him, and you don’t need my father.”

Sokka begins to back away ever so slowly, his eyes still trained on Azula’s. There has be _something_ in that liquid amber, just a single _glint_ of loyalty...right?

Azula’s lips curl into a smirk that’s all too familiar. 

“Why would you,” she continues, “when the rightful Fire Lord is right here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way this fic just keeps getting longer.....
> 
> also...sorry lol

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!!!


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